No1 Disposable Ninja
by fyleisch
Summary: In a Naruto universe where the Ninja Academy doesn't inexpicably pass one student too few to form complete teams, an unfamiliar face gains her hitai-ate. Ami is happy to take her rightful place as a genin of Konoha, but when an unexpected -and unprecedented- additional promotion puts that year's dead last into the rookie pool, someone is going to find themselves left over.
1. Team Leftover 1-1

_Naruto was created by Masashi Kishimoto_

 _A little introduction:  
The first three arcs of this story deal with little know background characters, following a largely canon-compliant storyline. The story converges with main characters, and canon events at the time of the chunin exams, and diverges from canon afterwards._

 _# # #_

"So we have nine graduates this year," Homura said, sipping lightly at a short glass of sake and leaning back into the plush seats of the booth. Homura was impeccably groomed for a shinobi, even a retired shinobi. His hair was brushed back into a grey comet-tail, and his beard was trimmed to an elegant point.

"All clan children, I expect," Miyu said. Her voice was neutral, but as she took a sip of her own drink, she fixed Homura with a pointed gaze. Miyu was an elderly woman, her stocky frame and exquisite yellow kimono marking her as one of the two civilian members of the Petty council, and her subtle jewellery and vibrantly dyed silk marking her as a woman of some wealth.

"Seven are, but there are two civilian graduates this year," Utatane said. Utatane didn't have a drink of her own, but was hovering over a plate of sweet dango. She wore a simple kimono, her hair was pinned into a tight bun, and her eyes were closed to slits, as if even the low lights of the restaurant were too much to bear. "Haruno Sakura, and Nigai Ami are both from undistinguished families, and yet that made it through their academy exams. Haruno did quite well, so I hear, but Nigai only passed when the scores were normalised to pass the full nine."

"Oh- Haruno! The caravan traders!" Miyu said, smiling gently as she pulled a sheet of paper towards her and began scanning down the names. "Ooh- she beat out a lot of the clan children on academics. Her taijutsu scores were low, but she is a girl after all, she can't be expected to do inelegant things."

"She was a shoe-in given the rest of the graduating class," Homura said. "The Nigai girl was more middle of the road, but with three jonin-sensei, it makes sense to pass a full nine. She was certainly the best of what was left."

"Two civilians, and both little kunoichis," Miyu said. She pinched her shoulders and grinned in an excited gesture. "Shall we put them on the same team?"

Homura shook his head, turning to glance at Utatane. It was hard to tell, but he thought he saw her roll her eyes. "The jonin leaders have already chosen their apprentices. The two civilians are to be placed on different teams, each with clan children if possible. I hear the hokage himself had a hand in their placement."

"Oh? The Hokage wants the clan brats to learn that civilian-born shinobi can be just as skilled as them?" Miyu asked, raising an eyebrow and lifting her chin as she looked to Homura.

"Or he wants to show the civvie kids up, when they're surpassed by their clan rivals," Mikio said, sinking back into the red leather of the booth seats and folding his arms. Mikio was the second civilian permitted to sit on the petty council. He wore only simple clothes, despite the finery of the restaurant that Homura used for their meetings. Not wealthy by any standard, Mikio had gained a place on the council thanks to his personal popularity amongst the poorer segments of Konoha's civilian population.

"Now, we don't have the right to question the hokage," Homura said, holding his hands up in a settling gesture. "The hokage has also asked for the Ino-Shika-Cho team to be repeated in this generation, and Kurenai has asked for Hyuga-Nigai-Aburame, so that would leave the final team as Uchiha-Haruno-Inuzuka under Kakashi."

"Oh, Uchiha-Haruno," Miyu said. She turned to the restaurant floor as she spoke and absently raised her hand to attract the attention of a waiter. "Is that a good idea - putting the two geniuses together?"

Homura wave a hand dismissively. "Haruno's hardly a genius, except academically. Her shinobi skills are average at best. Besides, these are only learning groups, they'll probably be split up by advancement in a few years anyway - or by casualties."

"Sure, there you are. It will all work out-" Mikio said, but was interrupted the arrival of a tall, dark-haired man in a dark green flak-jacket, drawing curious glances from the other patrons of the crowded restaurant.

"What is it?" Homura asked.

"A message from the hokage, Mitokado-sama," the chunin said, handing over a tightly wound scroll the to the village elder.

"Oh, a last minute instruction?" Homura said. He began unfurling the scroll, and spoke again to the chunin without looking up. "Thank you, you can go."

"What does it say?" Utatane asked.

Homura was silent for several moments, and his mouth began to droop open. "It seems that Uzumaki Naruto has been given a field promotion to genin, and will be joining the other rookies in graduating this year."

"Oh, how can that be?" Miyo asked smoothly. "I thought academy students weren't allowed into the field."

"There was an incident within the city limits," Homura said, passing the scroll to Utatane. "I'm sorry, Miyo-san, Mikio-san, but the details are classified military information. It's enough to say that the boy has graduated after all."

"Oh? But that makes one extra," Miyo said, drawing her finger down the list of graduates in front of her. There didn't seem to be any additional space in the student line-up to slot the new graduate.

"Uh, we'll just send one of them back to the academy," Homura said. "One of the civilians of course."

"I hope you're joking!" Miyo snapped. "They've both been graduated, they already have their hitai-ate!"

"Hm, well, what if we..." Homura began, pulling the rookie sheet away from Miyo and examining it.

"Perhaps you can have a team with four this year?" Miyo suggested.

"Only a civilian would say such a thing," Utatane sniffed.

"Ugh, come on, I want to talk about my labour reforms already," Mikio said, jabbing a finger into the table. "Can't you just say there's an extra secret test before becoming ninja - 'oh, you fail,' then send one back to the academy?"

"Th-there is a test like that!" Utatane said.

"Huh, so do it. Give one of them a dumb test, then kick them back. Maybe that one, the low-score civvy," Mikio said, peering at the graduation list over Homura's shoulder. "So anyway. You seen how many out of work labourers are hanging round the gates every morning? It's bad for crime, an' it's bad for Konoha. If the hokage were to throw a little of that ninja money our way, maybe as a big construction project-"

"Wait, those tests are given by the Jonin sensei," Homura interrupted, dragging the conversation back to Genin teams. "And they pass or fail as a team. We'd have to assign her to a team to get her to fail, and that's the whole problem to begin with."

"What if she had her own team," Miyo suggested, calmly brushing a crease out of her silk. "A team of one, just for the purposes of failing the test."

Homura rubbed a hand across his forehead. "It's unprecedented. And we can't pull a jonin from active duty just to take care of one Genin, even for a few days. Imagine the paper work! And too many candidates would see it as a black mark on their career."

"So, use someone else. Make one of your duty-chunin do it." Mikio said, growing annoyed.

"A... chunin sensei?" Utatane said.

"Just for a day, it would be okay wouldn't it?" Miyo asked.

"Huh... okay, fine," Homura said, holding his hands up in defeat, before scribbling further on his notes. "We'll put the Uzumaki kid with the Uchiha and the civilian, and the Hyuga can go with the Inuzuka and Aburame, there, that's a fine tracking team. I'll clear it with the jonin leaders tomorrow."

"Problem solved," Mikio said, raising a glass in ironic celebration. "Can we talk about a real problem now?"


	2. Team Leftover 1-2

The sun blistered the stone-paved streets, the wind whipped up dust from the dirt roads, and Ami burst through the doors of the Konoha shinobi academy for the last time. She strutted proudly in her Konoha forehead protector - the proof that she was finally a ninja. Long hair, the colour of poison tried to whip at her face with every slight turn of her head, now restrained by the blue fabric of her hitai-ate, and a tight, cruel smile blazed out at the other graduates.

Ami's eyes met those of a pink-haired girl as she made her way to her desk. At any time in the past those gazes would be filled with animosity, but now neither could look at the other without seeing the glint of steel, and the spiral leaf of Konoha - the proof of their unity, and shared reason to celebrate. Ami nodded at the pink-haired girl, and to her surprise, the gesture was returned.

The pink haired girl was called Sakura. The daughter of a wealthy family, the best friend of a clan heir, and the subject of half a dozen student crushes, despite her enormous forehead. Sakura's red dress, emblazoned with her clan symbol and always pristine, contrasted sharply with Ami's own frayed, drab clothes. Sakura was commonly -often secretly- admired, while Ami had a tendency to frown, and a figure she charitably allowed herself to describe as 'stout'. But if Ami lost out in the contest of looks, she consoled herself that she at least had the muscle to win through in the contests that mattered.

As Ami watched, Sakura pulled the forehead protector from her forehead, and looped it over the top of her hair instead. Ami saw an opportunity to exert her dominance, and yelled at the girl as she moved to her own seat. "Hey, that's meant to go on your forehead, Giant Brow. You know you can get an extra-large version if you ask."

The girl's eye twitched, but she didn't rise to the bait, and Ami slid her legs beneath her desk. She was preparing another lightning-witted barb when the classroom's screen door slid open, and a man with a scar across his nose limped in.

"Hey, Iruka-sensei!" a blonde boy yelled from the other side of the room.

The instructor gave the class a brief smile, but didn't reply, instead turning to address them all.

"Beginning today, all of you are real ninjas!" he said. Suddenly the class hushed. "But... you are merely rookie genin. The hard part has just started."

Iruka gazed across the room of increasingly excited children, perhaps hoping to see a sign that they were approaching their futures with the serious composure warranted by the situation, but not finding it. "Now, soon you will be assigned duties by the village, so today we will be creating the three-person teams, and each will have a jonin- uh, a sensei. You will follow that sensei's instructions as you complete the assigned duties."

Iruka pulled a scroll from a pocket of his flak-jacket and unfurled it. "To start, Team Seven: Haruno Sakura, Uzumaki Naruto, and Uchiha Sasuke."

Ami watched their reactions with amusement at first, as Sakura quailed at realising she'd be sharing a team with the annoying Blondie. Her amusement vanished when she realised that the Forehead had managed to snap up Sasuke. Ami lifted her nose into the air and sniffed, turning back to face the front of the class.

Whatever crush she may once have had on the dark haired Uchiha, the annoying antics of his fan club had made the prospect of being lumped in with them unappealing. Ami cast furtive glances around the room as Blondie mouthed off about being placed on a team with the Uchiha, and Iruka explained about how team placements were worked out according to performance. The explanation seemed superficially plausible, but something about Iruka's delivery left Ami unconvinced.

"Next, Team Eight," Iruka said once the blonde had settled down. "The following will be part of Team Eight: Inuzuka Kiba, Hyuga Hinata, Aburame Shino."

Ami noticed the clan girl Hinata jabbing her fingers together nervously, but the dog-brat was grinning. They certainly seemed happier with their placement than the last three. Realising that there weren't that many people left to be sorted, Ami began glancing around the class, trying to work out her own placement by counting who was left.

"Finally, Team Ten. You will be: Akimichi Choji, Nara Shikamaru, and Yamanaka Ino," Iruka said, letting the arm holding the list fall to his side.

Ami felt her stomach slowly sinking into her gut. Forgotten, out of place. She'd always been the odd one out, the ugly one, the ignored one. Even the Blondie got attention sometimes, when he acted up, but she hadn't even been remembered when it came to hand out team assignments.

Already dreading the answer, Ami began to raise her hand. "Hey Sensei, you forgot me, what's my team?"

"Ah, you'll have a special arrangement, Ami-chan. You'll be assigned to a team of just yourself, under a chunin-sensei," Iruka said, forcing a smile.

The rest of the class spent several moments looking between each other, and Ami heard several mutters.

"She's on Team Leftover," the other annoying blonde, Ino, shouted gleefully.

Ami felt her cheeks grow hot, and lowered her eyes to her hands clasped over the desk.

"No! It's a good opportunity," Iruka insisted. "Ami will have the benefit of one-on-one instruction from her sensei."

Instantly, The Uchiha's hand shot up in the air. "Sensei, I wish to be placed into this arrangement."

Iruka laughed awkwardly. "Ha-ah, I'm afraid not. The assignments have all been made, and carry the approval of the Hokage. Well, that's all. I have to go now. You're all dismissed, but come back tomorrow to meet your jonin- uh, your sensei." Iruka quickly left the room, sliding the door closed behind him.

Ami squeezed her hands so tightly together they began to hurt. She risked a glance up at the rest of the class, and saw several derisive stares directed at her. Sasuke's glare was fierce, backed by an emotion she could tell was intense but couldn't place. Whatever he was thinking, his glare couldn't make the situation any worse. Team Leftover. That name would haunt her for the rest of her life. She stood shakily, knocking her chair over in her haste to get out of the room.

"Bye Leftover!" Ino shouted through giggles.

"I wonder what loser sensei they gave her," Sakura pondered aloud.

Ami slid open the door and ran from the room, her red face in a furious grimace. She began to run home at first, until she remembered that her mother would be there, sitting at home on a rare day off from her job in the service district, waiting with a celebratory lunch for news of her daughter's assignment. Ami couldn't face her like that, she had to find somewhere to calm down.

She found herself wandering through the outskirts of the village, beyond the Ninja Academy, passing through empty training grounds and small copses of trees. Eventually she arrived at a small pond beneath a hanging tree, and she sat, staring into the clear water. At some point between leaving the classroom and finding the pond, Ami realised she'd started crying, and she leaned forward to scoop handfuls of water onto her cheeks. Her reflection was alarming, with red eyes, hot red cheeks, and a mess of dark purple hair, and she spent a minute trying to rake her hair back into shape.

Back at her home, Ami tried to make the best of the situation to her mother. It was an opportunity, She'd get one-on-one training. There'd be no team mates to annoy her or get in her way. Her mother was not convinced, and concerned that there'd be no one to watch out for her daughter. She couldn't imagine what the Hokage was thinking, and Ami silently agreed.

The newly minted kunoichi got little sleep that night, and every step towards the Academy the following morning only increased the clenching pain around her heart. As she took her seat among laughing and chattering genin, she was forced to consider the question she'd heard the previous day - what loser sensei had they saddled her with.

The first person to appear in the doorway to the classroom was a black haired woman wearing a mesh shirt. Ami sat up straight as she saw the woman's piercing red eyes, and waited eagerly for her to speak.

"Team Eight!" She shouted, and three of the new genin stumbled down past the desks to leave with her.

Ami lay her head down on her folded arms to wait. The second sensei to arrive was a sturdy looking man with a cigarette stuck between his lips. He had called out for team ten, and they had all left together.

The third visitor to the room was a smiling brown haired man with small black eyes, wearing a green flak jacket over a blue jumpsuit. Ami only gave him the briefest glance, before lowering her head back down to rest.

"Nigai Ami?" the man asked, and the rest of the class stilled.

"Leftover Sensei!" someone whispered loudly from the back of the class.

"Yeah," Ami said, standing reluctantly. She marched down through the desks towards the door as if she were heading to her execution.

"It's nice to meet you, Ami-chan," the man said, turning back to grin kindly at her as they left the classroom. "I'm Sarugaku Tsuzumi, please address me as Tsuzumi-sensei while we're working together."

"Sure, sensei," Ami said, unimpressed.

Tsuzumi's smile faded for a moment, and he resumed leading her away in silence. After they'd made some distance from the academy building, he slowed to walk beside her, and began speaking again. "Say, Ami. I know you think you've passed the academy exams already, but I should tell you, before they're made fully active shinobi, every genin must pass a special test set by their sensei."

Ami stopped in her tracks. "What!" She shouted, turning to the man. "After I went through all of that - I still might not get to be a shinobi?"

"Hm, I'm afraid not," Tsuzumi said, his infuriating smile returning. "The other jonin leaders will be doing their tests tomorrow, but I want to get a head start, so we're heading to the training ground now."

Ami began stomping after the chunin to catch up, and silently fumed the rest of the way. After several minutes of walking, Ami was growing increasingly nervous, and she was at first relieved when Tsuzumi led her into a wide open field, bordered by trees on all sides, and featuring a tall wooden pole planted in the exact centre of the clearing.

"Welcome to the Twenty-Eighth Training Ground," Tsuzumi said, holding up his arms expansively.

Ami glanced left and right at the dense trees. "It's great." She sniffed.

"Tell me, Ami-chan, have you ever practised the tree-walking exercise?" Tsuzumi asked, turning to the girl.

"N-no! They never taught us that in the academy. I can climb a tree, you want me to climb a tree? I'm on it!" She said eagerly, the ghost of hope playing across her features.

"Not a tree," Tsuzumi said, pulling a kunai from his pouch. From the ring of the kunai dangled a paper tag, the word 'Victory' written across it in black ink. He threw the kunai directly up into the air, and several seconds later it fell back down, burying itself neatly into the top of the wooden pole.

"I have to climb that?" Ami asked sceptically, eyeing the pole. It had to be thirty feet tall, with no hand-holds or notches to make things easy.

"Yes! Your test is to recover the kunai," Tsuzumi said with a smile.

"But... how!" Ami yelled.

"Hm, you have to work it out, it's part of the test. Try... using chakra!" Tsuzumi called unhelpfully over his shoulder, already heading back towards the tree line. "Oh, and don't leave the training ground, I'll be hiding out here, and I'll know if you try and cheat. If you try to leave, it's an instant fail."

Ami scowled at the retreating chunin.

"You've got three hours, Ami-chan, good luck," Tsuzumi shouted as he passed out of sight, following the path back to the village centre.

"Okay, Pole-san. You're not so tough," Ami muttered, turning to the pole.

She approached the post and thought about Tsuzumi's parting advice, then placed the palm of one hand against the wood, gathered up a mass of chakra, and pushed it into her hands. Or rather, she tried. Ami's chakra control had always been poor. She could manage the Academy three with some finesse, but only after countless hours of practice, and when it came to picking up control techniques on-the-fly she'd always lost out to her classmates. It had taken her weeks just to get a leaf to stick to her forehead during the Academy's earliest chakra shaping exercises, and as she tried and failed to adhere her hand to the pole she began to think that this one would take no less time to work out.

For two or three attempts out of her dozens of tries, Ami thought she felt some mild resistance as she tried to pull her hand away, but it wasn't something she could repeat reliably, and as her arms began to tire she moved to sit on the ground, staring at the problem that towered over her.

"You're stronger than you look, Pole-san. It looks like I underestimated you," Ami muttered, before standing and moving up to hook her arms around the pole. She'd seen woodsmen climbing trees like this in the forests at the perimeter of the village, making a hoop of their arms around the trunk then inching incrementally upwards, but the bark of the trees must have been important to that technique, since against the smooth wood of the pole Ami couldn't get nearly enough traction to making the climbing technique work. She barely made it a foot off the ground, then hopped, frustrated, back onto the grass before she could fall.

She changed postures, and gripped the pole more tightly, trying to inch up it like a caterpillar. This technique showed more promise, with her full body in contact with the pole, she finally had the grip to gain some height, but the effort depended entirely on the muscles of her arms and legs to stick, and after gaining several feet her strength gave out, and she slid slowly back down to the ground.

"There's gotta be a trick to it," Ami mused. "Sensei wouldn't tell me to if I couldn't do it."

Taking a moment to center herself, Ami took several steps back from the pole and examined the problem from a distance. Iruka had always emphasised the importance of ninja tools, and Ami always carried at least a pair of kunai and stack of shuriken.

She dug the kunai from her pouch and spent a moment thinking of applications. Her first idea was to hack at the dry earth beneath the pole to uproot it. She began to dig using the sharp point of a kunai, but very quickly found that the soil surrounding the pole was only an inch deep. Below that it was set into a large block of concrete, which Ami could only chip at ineffectually.

Ami's second attempt using the kunai was to treat them as climbing picks, jabbing them at the wood and trying to haul herself up. She struggled with this from the start, as from only a few inches away she couldn't hit the pole hard enough to penetrate the tight grain of the wood deeply enough to get a good grip. She found that she could get the kunai to stick firmly if she threw them from a distance, or hammered them in with a stone, but that wasn't something she could do once she'd cleared the ground. Ami allowed her frustration to bleed away, and stepped back from the problem again.

The two kunai embedded into the pole made the start of a very respectable ladder, it was just annoying that Ami didn't have more of them, and there were none to be found elsewhere in the training ground. Reluctantly, Ami turned to the stack of shuriken in her pouch.

With slightly more difficulty than the kunai, Ami began throwing the shuriken at the post, aiming to embed them at even distances up its length. For every one that hit on target, three went wide, and Ami wasted frantic minutes searching the training ground for the missed ammunition. Eventually she reached a point where the shuriken were scattered more or less evenly all the way to the top, in a pattern she prayed she'd be able to climb - supposing that they even bore her weight.

Ami stepped up onto the handle of the first kunai, and then the second, holding the sides of the pole for balance. There was an ominous cracking sound, but the blade seemed to be holding in the wood. She grimaced down at the next step - the first shuriken she'd thrown, sticking out of the post at a thirty degree angle.

Ami placed the tip of her sandal onto the shuriken, and gently let it take her weight. For a moment the shuriken seemed to hold, before it snapped in half, sending Ami to tumble to the ground with a yelp. She sat up and growled. The steel of the throwing stars was almost strong enough to take her weight, but she'd have to hold onto the ones above as she climbed if she wanted to make it to the top.

Ami began again, stretching her leg to skip the broken shuriken. As she began to apply her weight to the next step, she reached up and gingerly grasped the shuriken above. The first cut came quickly and predictably, slicing the palm of her hand where she gripped the sharp weapon.

Ami grunted at the stinging pain, and blanched at the sight of a drop of blood running down her forearm, but persisted. She'd suffered worse scrapes climbing trees as a child, and the consequences for failure here were far worse than a little cut. Ami didn't want to imagine what her life would become if she failed the test, but she knew her mother couldn't afford to support her for another year of the Academy, and without a ninja income, she'd be forced to take up other work.

Ami managed to pull herself up to the second shuriken without further injuring her hands, but with her full weight spread between them it was impossible to climb them without injury, and the cuts accumulated.

Her breathing was heavy as she neared the top, and she alternately grunted with effort and yelped with pain as she caught herself on the sharp edges of metal, tearing increasingly messy cuts into her palms and fingers.

Her arms were slick with blood when she finally reached the top of the pole, folding her forearms onto the edge to hoist herself up, holding her palms clear to avoid putting pressure on the torn skin. There was little space on top of the pole to sit and rest, but Ami batted the hilt of the 'Victory' kunai with the palm of her hand until it dislodged and fell to the ground below, then sat, breathing heavily, staring down at her crimson skin.

After a few seconds, she raised her red hands to the sky, and shouted, "Victory!"

Ami couldn't remember enough of the Academy's first aid course to know whether she was losing a dangerous amount of blood, but she knew that with Tsuzumi-sensei watching from the woods, she'd never be allowed to place herself in real danger.

After regaining her breath, Ami turned, and began awkwardly backing down the pole on the opposite side to her shuriken steps. She gripped the side of the pole with her thighs and forearms, and started to slide down using her caterpillar method. After a couple of feet she began sliding far more quickly than she intended, and when she hit the ground, she was sure that she'd twisted her ankle.

"Ow ow ow," Ami rolled on her back, then slouched up to a sitting position. She dragged the Victory kunai into her lap with the tip of an undamaged pinky finger, then sat with her back to the post, pressing her hands against her thighs as hard as she could bear to stem the bleeding.

She briefly wondered what Tsuzumi-sensei was waiting for, why stay in hiding if she'd already passed the test, but the sun was warm, and weariness, along with a strange light-headedness, was pushing her towards sleep. Her eyes eventually closed, and she drifted away.


	3. Team Leftover 1-3

Ami could see golden evening light filtering through her eyelids, and felt the fading heat of sunshine on her face. She was lying on something soft, and in the background the sound of low voices rumbled beneath the chorus of dusk birdsong. Her face felt hot, and her hands felt stiff and leaden, the skin of her palms tight and itchy. Her eyes flickered open weakly, and she looked around.

Ami was in an apartment, large and expensively furnished. One wall was given over to a large window which looked out over an attractive view of the Konoha skyline, behind which the sun was slowly setting, becoming a band of liquid fire as it passed beneath the dark tree line beyond.

"Hey, she's awake!" A woman's voice said. "He-ey, Ami-chan, how're you feeling?"

Ami looked over to see a brown haired woman in her early twenties approaching her from a doorway which looked like it led to a kitchen.

"Who- the hell are you?" Ami croaked weakly.

"I'm Inaho. I'm your sensei's special friend," the woman said, smiling and wiggling her pinky finger.

Ami sat up dizzily, looking around the room. "Where am I? Hey, is this sensei's place?"

Ami gave the room a cursory inspection before looking down at her hands, finding them tightly wrapped in bandages. Thin wooden splints had been worked into the bandages over the back of her hands, which stopped her from moving her fingers or bending her hands at all. On a low table behind her was her belt pouch, besides which was the 'victory' kunai from her test, still bearing its paper tag.

Tsuzumi arrived from the kitchen, smiling and drying his hands on a towel. He'd traded his blue jumpsuit and flak-jacket for a formal brown shirt and close-fitting pants, and his ordinarily spiky hair was hanging loosely across his forehead.

"Hey, Ami-chan, you're awake! Welcome to my home," Tsuzumi said, tossing the towel over the back of a wooden chair. "You were pretty out of it after your test, so I brought you here to rest - and make you dinner!"

"Uh, that's great, sensei," Ami said, rubbing the palms of her bandaged hands together to try and address the intense itching.

"Your hands were pretty messed up," Inaho said, catching Ami's hands and pulling them apart. "I gave you a painkiller and healed the cuts up, but I ran out of juice, and there's still some deep damage. You'll have to wear the splints for tonight, and I'll fix the rest up tomorrow, okay?" Inaho cocked her head and gave Ami a friendly smile.

"Uh, sure, but shouldn't I be... you know- in hospital!?" Ami said.

"Ah-ha, no, no," Tsuzumi said, scratching his head as he forced a smile. "It's really only a minor training injury, no need to make a fuss. You can sleep here tonight on the couch, and Iny-chan will fix you up in the morning. Tonight, just lay back, and enjoy the famous Sarugaku hospitality!"

"Stay here? I can't!" Ami said, sliding her feet off the couch. "My kaa-chan's expecting me home! I've got to go, it's late already!"

"No, no, I won't hear it," Tsuzumi said, wandering back into the kitchen and shouting through the open door. "Tell Iny-chan where you live, she'll go tell your mother that you're staying over with your sensei, to get a head start on training."

Inaho shot the empty kitchen doorway a severe glance. "Yeah, sure, where do you live Ami?"

Ami hesitated for a moment, but the smells drifting from the kitchen promised a meal more magnificent than anything she could expect at home, and it could be argued that it was already too late to go walking back alone through the poorer parts of Konoha. If anything, her mother would applaud her decision to avoid the risky journey. She'd probably call Ami a responsible young woman.

"Hmm-hm. Okay," Ami said, and began to give Inaho her address, and some directions on how to navigate the narrow streets of her home district.

Inaho pulled on a Konoha hitai-ate, adjusted it so that her bangs fell loosely over the metal plate, and nodded. "Back soon," she called, before stepping out of the apartment.

Tsuzumi could be heard humming idly for a minute in the kitchen, before he began speaking, wandering back into the room, idly stirring a metal pot. "Oh, and you know Ami-chan, you probably shouldn't tell anyone about what happened in your test today," he said with a smile. "You passed it in kind of a dumb way, you don't want anyone to think you're dumb, do you?"

Ami's eyes narrowed at the sensei. "You weren't there."

Tsuzumi looked up from the pot, his eyes wide. "Uh, what? Of course I was watching, Ami-chan."

"You went away somewhere," Ami said, trying to point accusingly, but instead just waving her mummified hand at him like a lumpy club. "Were you getting drunk!?"

"Ah-ha, what! No!" Tsuzumi said, wandering back into the kitchen, and continuing the conversation through the open door. "What a terrible thing to say to your sensei. You've hurt my feelings."

"I bet I wasn't supposed to get hurt in my test, and if I tell, you'd be in trouble," Ami guessed, the sweet scent of potential blackmail mingling with the hearty aromas of food.

"I swear, I was there in those woods all afternoon! I just thought you were doing okay!"

"Sure. I bet you were making out with your girlfriend," Ami said.

"Ah-ha. Say Ami-chan, do you like bonito?"

Ami sniffed. "I don't know."

"Okay, lets try it," he called, and the sounds of shifting pots and the use of mysterious implements continued.

"You can't buy my silence with food," Ami called.

"I can't?" Tsuzumi asked, his shocked face appearing at the door to the kitchen.

Ami closed her eyes and shook her head resolutely. "No, I want you to teach me a jutsu."

"Okay, okay," Tsuzumi said, disappearing back into the kitchen.

"A-and, how to walk up poles," Ami added.

"Sure, sure."

"And..." Ami paused, racking her mind for something else to add to the extortion. "And you'll get me a cool mission."

"Yeah, yeah."

"You better not just be saying 'yeah, yeah'!" Ami shouted.

"Huh?" Tsuzumi asked. Ami ground her teeth.

After several minutes of silence, during which Ami frantically rubbed her bandaged palms together to no effect, the door to the apartment opened, and Inaho walked back in, her face glistening with a thin sheen of sweat. She closed the door behind her, pulled off her headband, and collapsed onto the couch beside Ami.

"Mother notified," Inaho said, pushing the loose hair out of her eyes.

"You met kaa-chan?" Ami asked. "You were so fast!"

"Little house with a red door, woman with brown hair? Yeah I met her, she was nice," Inaho said. "She offered me tea, wrung her hands a little when I said you were staying over, made me promise to stay over with you."

"Yeah, that's kaa-chan. Huh, wait, you're staying over? Where will you-" Ami turned to look at the other door from the central room, leading to the apartment's only bedroom. "Uhhh!"

"That's right, Ami-chan," Inaho said, wriggling her little finger again.

Ami seemed to sulk for a moment, before pointing her club hand at the brown haired woman. "Okay. But no funny business!"

Inaho raised a hand solemnly. "I swear on my honour as a ninja."

Soon Tsuzumi had finished with the meal, and began carrying dish after dish from the kitchen and placing them on a low table in front of the couch. Ami had never seen such a rich and diverse spread before: almost a dozen bowls, with fish, meat, rice, vegetables, all mixed expertly into dishes she didn't even know the name of.

Inaho helped her overcome her awkward lack of functional hands by binding a spoon to Ami's fingers with medical tape, and it was enough to clumsily stuff the delicious food into her mouth - though she had to suffer through the gentle mocking of the sensei and Inaho to do it. She was soon full, and very soon after that, falling asleep in her corner of the couch.

Her last memories of the night were of Inaho pulling a blanket over her, turning out the light, and tip-toeing into the bedroom.

The following morning was overcast, and Ami woke to a cold living room, and the sound of clattering coming from the open bedroom door. Moments later, Inaho emerged from the bedroom, pulling on a long white coat over a blue undershirt, her forehead protector already in place.

"Hey Ami, rise and shine," Inaho said, sitting beside the girl on the couch, and taking Ami's hands in hers. The woman seemed a little less friendly in the early morning light, clearly in a rush, her tone all business as she began to unwind the bandages.

Ami yawned, exposing Inaho to her morning breath, feeling only momentarily guilty she had no free hands to cover her mouth.

Inaho leaned back, away from Ami's face. "Ehk, poison cloud no jutsu. Next time bring a toothbrush!"

Ami smiled drowsily. Looking down at her hands as they were unbound, she got her first look at the new scars that criss-crossed her palms.

"Cool!"

"Hmm, you're young, and you've got a lot of growing to do," Inaho said, moving her own hands to hold above the girl's right hand. "They'll probably fade as you grow older, but not for a few years. I hope you're not one of those preening pretty-type kunoichi."

Ami shook her head. "I beat people up."

"Uh-huh." Inaho's outstretched hand began to glow faintly with ghostlike green light, and Ami was suddenly staring intently.

"What's that technique?" she asked in awe.

"This is medical chakra, I'm using it to heal the deep damage to your hands," Inaho said, passing the green glow back and forth across her palms, accompanied by freshly intense itching. "You're very lucky you didn't damage your ulnar artery or median nerves, but you nicked some of your tendon sheaths, and I need to heal them up so you can bend your fingers properly. I think you should buy some gloves in future!"

Ami nodded sagely at the explanation, giving no indication to the fact that she understood very little of it.

"Where's the sensei?" Ami asked as Inaho moved onto her other palm. She flexed the freshly healed hand experimentally. Bending it hurt, but it was a dull, bearable pain. Not the fiery shooting pains of her bloody climb.

"Someone kicked him out of bed early, so he could prepare to atone for his crimes against students," Inaho said.

"Yes! I get a jutsu! High five!" Ami said, raising her hand.

Inaho looked up and raised an eyebrow.

"Ahh, maybe not," Ami said, lowering her hand back to her lap.

Inaho finished the rushed treatment and gave Ami's palms a final inspection, deeming them to be healed enough for day-to-day activities.

"That should be good enough for training," she said, standing and picking up a belt pouch to fasten around her waist. "Just don't let him get you punching trees or something stupid like that. Come on, let's go, I have to lock up."

As Inaho pulled on a pair of open-toed boots, Ami untied the 'Victory' tag from the kunai and used it to tie her unkempt hair back in a pony-tail. She dropped her sensei's kunai into her pouch, noting it was much higher quality than her own pair, and pulled on her sandals.

Inaho ushered Ami out of the apartment, handing her a pair of bento-boxes full of leftovers and turning to lock the apartment door. Ami was led down six flights of stairs to the ground, and then out into a familiar district of Konoha, close to the village's commercial centre.

Inaho began walking quickly towards the Konoha general hospital, and Ami followed, her two lunch-boxes swinging beside her in a string net. Catching sight of Ami from the corner of her eye, Inaho stopped and turned to the girl.

"Oh, right. Tsuzumi said you were to first go visit your mother, give her the spare bento," Inaho pointed at the net bag. "Then go to meet him at the sixth watchtower on the Western wall. Got it?"

"Kaa-chan, sixth tower, Western wall, got it," Ami repeated.

"That's right," Inaho said. She ruffled Ami's hair, drawing a scowl, before starting off back towards the hospital. "I've got work now, it was nice to meet you!"

"Bye!-" Ami called, as the brown haired woman rounded a corner and disappeared out of sight.

Ami wasted no time in heading first for home, where she caught her mother leaving for work. Ami handed over the bento of leftovers and walked with the woman for a while, giving a highly edited version of events of the previous day, omitting the injuries she'd inflicted on herself, and repeating Tsuzumi's excuse of early training as her reason for staying over. Her mother seemed pleased to see her daughter after their night apart, and when her path took her east towards the Konoha service district, Ami broke away to head to the wall.

The morning sun was just peeking over the far side of the Konoha wall when Ami made it to the foot of Watchtower Six. Ami craned her neck upwards at the watchtower, looking for any sign of the sensei.

"Hey! Sensei! Where are you?" Ami shouted. Her voice echoed around the wall and across the grass, carried by the cool morning air.

Only a moment passed before Tsuzumi appeared at the top of the wall, looking down. He hopped off the edge, slapping a hand and foot against the stone as he fell, and sliding the rest of the way down at a safe pace.

"Morning Ami-chan," he said brightly, clapping the stone dust from his hand as he landed gently on the grass.

"Sensei, why are we at the wall? Are you going to teach me a wall jutsu?" Ami asked.

Tsuzumi forced a stern expression onto his face, and began to shake his head. Then paused. "Actually, yes! Remember the post-climbing technique I told you?"

"'Use chakra'?" Ami asked, her heart sinking. "It didn't work!"

Tsuzumi ignored her. "Well, I was up early this morning getting you the best D-rank mission they had. We were the first rookie team to even request a mission, so I managed to get a good one."

"Sure. What is it?" Ami asked.

"I'll tell you," he began, swivelling to point upwards at the nest of the watchtower, "When you can walk up this tower and meet me at the top."

Ami followed the man's pointing finger, her mouth agape. "But I couldn't do it! It didn't stick at all!" she complained.

"Hmm, let me see you try," Tsuzumi said, taking a few steps back. "And tell me what you're doing."

Ami reluctantly walked up to the wall, lifted her leg, and placed the sole of her sandal onto the smooth stone.

"I gather chakra, and I send it to my feet," she said, concentrating, then pulling at her leg. Her foot came away from the wall without resistance.

"Okay, the secret is to keep a constant amount of chakra in your feet, and hold it there. Don't let it escape," Tsuzumi explained. "And you have to use the right amount! Too little, and you won't stick. Too much, and you fly off."

"Constant?" Ami asked. She placed her foot against the wall again and concentrated. This time when she tried to pull her foot away, it gave a moment's resistance.

"Heh heh heh," Ami chuckled dangerously, placing her foot back against the wall. She tried to lift herself off the ground by her adhered foot, but it just slid downwards along the wall.

"That's good, you've got the trick, you just need practice. The awesome mission I found you expires in three days, and it will probably take a day, so you better hurry up and meet me at the top. Your reputation as a ninja is at stake!"

"Yes, sensei!" Ami said seriously, as Tsuzumi leapt at the wall and sprinted back up to the nest of the watchtower. "Wait, why does the sensei have watch duty!" She called after him, but got no reply.

"Oh Wall-san, you have no chance against me," Ami muttered, taking a faltering step vertically up the wall, before coming unstuck and dropping back down to the ground. She took a deep breath, letting her anger drain away. "I defeated your brother Pole-san before I even learned this technique," she taunted.

The wall remained impassive, even as Ami began to make increasingly successful attempts against it.

Several hours later and Ami was exhausted, shaking, and halfway up Konoha's outer wall. She'd found that by using her hands as well as her feet, she was better able to maintain her balance as she climbed - crawling up the wall more than walking. It also felt safer to her, the chakra easier to focus in her hands than her feet, more sure and stable. She felt flush with success, having scaled half the distance to the top of the watchtower, but she was also beginning to succumb to fatigue, and with it fear. She could feel the first deep pangs of chakra depletion biting at her gut, as if she'd swallowed a ball of ice.

Ami looked downwards at the distance below her, more than thirty feet to the ground. "So dangerous," she muttered, and looked back upwards. She didn't trust her control enough to relax the hold and slide down the wall, not without losing her grip completely, and so she began painstakingly crawling backwards down the wall. She made it to the ground without injury this time, and collapsed onto the ground with her back to the wall.

The sun was almost directly overhead, so she pulled the bottle and box from her string bag and quickly devoured the leftovers. After draining the bottle dry, Ami treated herself to a brief nap, though regretted it an hour later when she woke up to the hot, prickling sensation of a sunburn. She stretched and began to tackle the wall again with renewed vigour.

Fortified by the rest, Ami made it halfway up the wall without even getting breathless, and though she was panting and sweating as she neared the top, her chakra had recovered enough to keep her out of danger.

"Seh-sensei!" Ami called when she was only a few feet short of the top of the tower. "Sensei-"

She continued to climb, and finally hooked one arm over the tower's wall, then a second, and hauled herself onto the floor of the nest. Now she'd finally reached it, Ami looked around the top of the watchtower with interest. She was in a square walled area, with four wooden posts holding up a tiled roof, which kept off the glare of the sun. The floor was made of the same stone as the wall, and in the centre of the space was an open-topped water barrel.

Ami lurched towards the barrel, picking up a ladle and pouring water into her mouth and over her face.

"What!? You made her climb the wall?"

Ami dropped the ladle and looked around again. She noticed she was sharing the space with her sensei Tsuzumi, and another man: dressed as a chunin, wearing glasses and a black undershirt with the word 'Endeavour' written in the centre. It was the unfamiliar chunin who'd spoken.

"Relax Okei, she made it fine," Tsuzumi said, turning his attention from the forests surrounding the village to look at Ami. "Congratulations, you mastered wall walking in less than a day! As expected of my student."

"Tsuzumi! You're crazy! What if she fell! You weren't even looking, she could have died!" Okei yelled.

Tsuzumi waved his hands dismissively. "Eh, it's fine, she's a genin. When we were that age we were going into war zones," he said, smiling brightly at the other chunin.

"Times have changed, you should be taking it easy on her!" Okei insisted.

"I did it sensei," Ami said, regaining her breath. "I beat Wall-san."

"Yeah! Well done, Ami-chan. Now- how would you like a mission?"

Ami nodded. "Yes sensei."

Tsuzumi pulled a scroll from one the pockets of his chunin vest, and held it up out of Ami's reach. "Now, this is a serious mission! Normally an entire genin team would take a mission like this, but you'll have to do it all on your own."

Ami frowned and nodded reluctantly.

"But, that also means you'll get to keep the reward yourself," Tsuzumi consoled her. "The reward for this mission is ten thousand Ryo."

Ami's mouth dropped open. She had little conception of money, but she knew her mother would consider that a fortune.

"Here you are, and off you go," he said, handing the scroll over.

"Y-you're not coming?" she asked as she took the scroll.

"I'm stuck here for the next couple of days, but since it's a D-rank, it won't be dangerous. It'll take you a couple of miles outside the village, but you'll be fine if you stick to the road. Don't forget to take some snacks and water. Since it's getting late, you might want to go home and set off tomorrow - unless you feel like camping, Ami-chan?"

"You're really sending her outside the village on her own?" Okei asked.

"Eh, it's just down the road," Tsuzumi said. "She's a big girl, what are you, thirteen?"

"Twelve!" Ami nodded, seriously.

"See?" Tsuzumi said, vindicated. "Anyway, stop undermining my authority with my student!"

The other chunin merely shrugged at Tsuzumi's grousing, and went back to scanning the tree line.

"Okay," Ami whispered to herself, sliding the scroll into her belt pouch and approaching the wall. Okei shook his head sadly as he saw Ami carefully lowering her leg over the edge, and she began half crawling, half sliding down the stone wall to the bottom. She pulled the scroll out of her pouch as soon as she had both feet on the ground, and began reading in the fading light as she walked towards her home.

# # #

Tsuzumi made his way through the darkened bar, spotting the village elders and sliding into their booth opposite them. Mitokado Homura and Utatane Koharu. Both venerable, highly respected, and politically powerful members of the Konoha council itself. Tsuzumi lowered his head respectfully to each of them.

"Mitokado-sama, Utatane-sama," he greeted with a smile.

"Ah, Sarugaku-san, please sit down," Homura said, gesturing sarcastically at the already seated chunin.

"Ah-ha," Tsuzumi laughed awkwardly, giving them his best smile.

"How was your day, Sarugaku-san?" Koharu asked, raising a glass of water to her lips.

"Oh, it was fine, thank you Utatane-sama. I spent the day on watch at the walls. We spotted nothing serious all day."

"Don't you like being in the official duty rotation?" Homura asked silkily.

"I-I do, Mitokado-sama," Tsuzumi stuttered. He especially enjoyed the regular income, proximity to Konoha's commercial district, daily contact with his friends and family, and some of the safest duties a chunin could be assigned.

"Interesting," Homura continued, "Then why did you request a mission scroll from the dispatch desk this morning?" Homura pulled a copy of the mission scroll Tsuzumi had requested from beneath the table, unfurling it between the sake bottles.

"Oh- that, ah-ha," Tsuzumi smiled winningly. "I requested that scroll for my cute student, Ami-chan."

"Ami-chan," Koharu drawled dangerously. "The student you were supposed to fail, and send back to the academy?"

"Ah-ha ha," Tsuzumi laughed, scratching his head. "Well, I took her to the training grounds straight after we were assigned, and I gave her an impossible task. Well, I thought it was impossible. But she passed the test, and I couldn't fail her after she'd done exactly as I asked, and... ah-ha, she's still my student it seems."

"She completed an impossible task, well that sounds impressive! Tell us about this impossible task!" Homura said.

"Well, she- I asked her if she'd ever practised the tree-walking exercise, and she hadn't." Tsuzumi turned to Koharu, "She hadn't! And so I placed a kunai at the top of ground Twenty-Eight's post, and said she had to get it. After that, I left her alone."

"Huh, well, did she cheat?" Homura asked.

"Well, ah-ha, not exactly." Tsuzumi scratched his head with both hands, his eyes widening with anxiety. "She- she used her shuriken to make a ladder, and climbed it to the top."

The councillors exchanged a long glance.

"She climbed a ladder of shuriken?" Koharu asked, disbelieving. "Was she injured?"

"Ah, quite badly," Tsuzumi confessed. "But nothing permanent, or life-threatening. We treated her injuries, and she was fit for training today. And she did train! She climbed the walls using the wall-walking technique."

The councillors exchanged another long glance. Entire conversations seemed to pass between them in that long gaze. Finally Homura turned to the chunin.

"Does this mean you want to be relieved of your duties, to be made her permanent sensei?" he asked, his voice slightly gentler than it had been. "I wouldn't have thought a mere chunin could afford that loss of income."

"No-no, that probably won't be necessary. I think I can fit her training in around my duties," Tsuzumi said quickly. "She's quite independent."

The two elders exchanged another long glance.

"Well," Homura began hesitantly. "I suppose..."

"It would at least keep her out of the way until next year's team selections," Koharu allowed.

"And it would put her in a good position to be a spare, in the case of casualties or promotions," Homura added.

Tsuzumi nodded.

"Well, all right, it's settled," Homura said after a moment. "Nigai Ami will continue to be your student."

Tsuzumi was about to thank the councillors, grateful for escaping punishment for the girl's injury and avoiding the loss of his job, until it began to dawn on him what he had just talked them into.

"Uh, wait, perhaps there's a better sensei out there for her-" he stammered.

"Nonsense," Koharu interrupted. "She sounds like she's blossoming under your instruction. We entrust her shinobi education to you."

"Ah-ha ha." Tsuzumi-sensei's head sank slowly into his hands.


	4. Team Leftover 1-4

_Three miles East of Konoha along the disused Konoha to Numa-Ku road there is an abandoned farmstead, composed of a three-story farmhouse along with six single-storey cottages. The farmstead, once called Honey Bee Farm, has been vacant for fourteen years, following the death due to sickness of its previous owner and the migration of its former residents into Konoha proper._

 _The client is the new owner of the farmstead and associated properties. They have requested that a team of shinobi inspect the property for damage, dispose of any refuse from the interior of the buildings, and remove any nesting animals or squatters which may have taken up residence in the property. All significant damage should be recorded, especially including damage which compromises the safety of the structures._

 _There have been two reports of smoke appearing over the property within the last twelve months, though no other sign of activity has been noted. Konoha patrols pass the property intermittently. The last patrol inspection took place two weeks ago, and found no evidence of human occupation._

 _The surrounding forest is believed to be inhabited by spinebadgers, which are known to prefer derelict buildings as their nesting sites. Spinebadgers are D-rank dangerous creatures, with incidents of civilian deaths in cases where their nests are disturbed. Spinebadgers are believed to pose minimal risk to a team of qualified shinobi of genin level or above._

# # #

Ami lowered the mission scroll after reading it for the ninth time.

She'd jumped out of bed with a spring in her step that morning, though the sky was still overcast, and intermittent drizzle fed a growing foreboding about the upcoming day as she prepared her supplies for the road.

She'd dressed in dark, tidy clothes she favoured, and tied the paper 'victory' tag to the white sash that circled her waist. Her pack had been filled with her cache of sweets and chips, and two water canteens, one of the few things her father had left behind when he walked out years before. She slid the three kunai that her sensei had recovered from the training ground into her pouch, and grimaced at the remains of her shuriken, now just a pile of bent shrapnel, rusty from too long left covered in blood.

The slums of Konoha was one of the farthest districts from the main gate, and rather than follow the branching streets through the commercial district, Ami opted to take the sometimes hazardous short cut across the band of training grounds that circled the more built-up village centre.

The clouds began to clear as she walked, and the sun emerged, already hot despite the early hour. Ami took the change as a good omen for her first mission, though when she saw three familiar figures sitting on the railing of a bridge ahead, her spirits fell. The figures were Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura from her graduating class.

They looked like they were waiting for something, and now that Ami was committed to her route, there was no way around. She grit her teeth and headed for the bridge, hearing snippets of conversation as she approached.

"He's running a little late," Sakura muttered.

None of them had seemed to notice Ami's presence, less than fifty meters away. They were sitting close together, passing idle conversation back and forth. They each seemed to glow with their own colours. Sakura's hair was the colour of cherry trees in spring, Sasuke was the pale shadow she cast, and Naruto was a miniature sun, beaming down at Sakura whenever she turned her face towards him.

They didn't look like anything so close as friends, but Ami could see something there, a bond. Solidarity and acceptance drifted between them like a tendril of wood smoke. They were allies. There was conflict between them, but they faced the world together. Something about that annoyed Ami, and a jutting root of anger slithered into her mind as she saw them relaxing on the railing. She stomped it down, but where it had been was a space, a vacuum that might have been loneliness, or something else.

Ami approached the three cautiously, eyeing them sidelong like a bird approaching a scrap of something that might be food. "Hey Forehead. Shouldn't you be training?" Ami said boldly, but not unkindly.

"Shut it, Leftover," Sakura yelled, turning her head towards Ami with white-eyed indignation. At one point in the past, even such a simple remark would have sent Sakura running away in tears, but years of such abuse had fortified her against it, an improvement Ami took some responsibility for.

"Huh? Purple?" Naruto said, turning towards Ami with an air of mild confusion. He quickly recovered as he processed what she'd said, then gestured at her accusingly. "Don't talk to Sakura-chan like that!"

"Naruto! Don't defend me!" Sakura said, including the boy within her glare. Ami noticed that Sakura almost seemed more angry at Naruto than she was at her.

"Shouldn't you be with your sensei?" Ami asked, slowing on the bridge until she'd almost stopped, kicking dust idly as she risked a glance at Sasuke, who ignored the situation impassively.

"He's late!" Naruto yelled.

"Ah, well, at least he's a jonin. When he gets here he can teach you some awesome jutsu, right?" Ami offered. "Tsuzumi-sensei only taught me a crappy wall jutsu so far."

"Huh? Wall jutsu? What is it?" Naruto asked. Sakura and Sasuke seemed interested as well, but held their silence, relying on the blonde to brave the conversation alone.

"It's the wall walking technique." Ami looked up towards the sun, thinking of her mission. Deciding she could spare a few minutes to show off, she walked to one of the posts which held up the bridge's decorative arches, placed a foot against it experimentally, and began walking slowly up the post. "You keep chakra in your feet, and it lets you stick," Ami explained.

"That doesn't sound like a real technique," Sakura said, tossing a strand of pink hair out of her face dismissively, though her eyes tracked Ami as she ascended several feet of the pole.

"It is too. It took me all day to learn it." Ami said, before pausing, and letting herself slide back down the pole to the bridge. "Didn't you guys learn this after your extra test?"

"What extra test?" Naruto asked, alarmed.

"There's another test you have to pass before you can be a genin," Ami said, looking between the three students uncertainly.

Sasuke was on his feet. "We weren't told about another test."

Sakura joined him, standing from the bridge rail.

"Hm. Mine was like," Ami paused to think. "Tsuzumi-sensei made me take a kunai from the top of a post. Except, it was really hard to climb up, that's why I learned wall walking right after."

"No, no, no," Naruto muttered, running to the bridge post and experimentally trying to walk up it. He fell down immediately.

"Hm, sorry. I thought you'd passed already," Ami said with a smirk.

Sakura grimaced, and after a moment of consideration walked to find a post of her own. She placed a foot against the wood experimentally, and began to slowly walk up it. Half a minute later she was at the top. "This took you a whole day?" she asked.

Ami grunted. "Yeah. I guess that's the giant brain you keep behind your giant brow."

Sakura scowled and stuck her tongue out at Ami, hopping back down. Naruto was still hopelessly trying to run up the post through sheer momentum.

"Well, I gotta go. Got a mission," Ami said, walking towards the end of the bridge.

"A mission already?" Sasuke asked, looking worried, but Ami pretended not to hear him.

Ami chuckled to herself as she walled away from the scene, through fields and woods, towards the main gate. She pulled the mission scroll from her pouch as she walked, reading it for the tenth time that morning, and then the eleventh.

# # #

When Ami reached the gate, she found it guarded a by a single chunin, who eyed her dubiously as she approached, his eyes flicking between her clothes and her headband.

"Going out?" he asked, stepping out from behind a simple stall which the gate guards manned during the day.

"Yeah," Ami said. She hooked her thumbs behind the straps of her pack, as if to illustrate her eminent readiness to leave the village.

"On your own?"

"I don't need anyone else!" Ami insisted.

The man seemed unconvinced, and held out his hand. "Orders?"

Ami dug in her pouch and handed the man the scroll, which he unfurled and skimmed, before handing back.

"A D-rank huh? Well, okay, good luck," the chunin said with a shrug, before pausing and scrabbling for something in the stall. "Wait, you know how to use a storage scroll? Take this. If you get into trouble, push some chakra into it, and back off. It'll send up a katon flare for the wall watch."

"Thanks, Guard-san," Ami said, taking the tag reverently and slipping it into her pouch beside her kunai.

The guard watched after Ami as she left, shaking his head.

The walk to the farmstead wasn't hard, and Ami had no trouble finding it, following the dilapidated signs for Numa-ku village. The road was muddy and rutted, covered in tall weeds and dotted with cracked wheel rims, animal droppings, and fallen leaves, the litter of disuse.

After two hours of walking along the rough road, the battered farmhouse finally came in to view, covered by overhanging vines and moss. Beside it, snapped from its posts and tossed to the ground by some past storm, was a sign which read 'Honey Bee Farm'. The text was accompanied by several realistic paintings of bees.

Ami stopped and dropped her backpack, pulling out the roll of paper and charcoal pencil she'd brought for the mission. Rolling the paper out across her knees, Ami carefully wrote 'the sign is broken' across the paper, before stuffing it back away.

As Ami picked her way through the large farmhouse's overgrown lawn, she stopped to add 'broken windows' and a 'smashed lock' to the list of damage, and inside, Ami found that the interior of the farmhouse was also in ruins. Shattered wooden furniture littered the floor, birds nests occupied the smashed upper windows, and the wooden walls around the fireplace was scorched where some group of travellers had evidently tried to build a camp fire in the hearth, without realising the blocked chimney would force the heat and smoke to flood out into the room.

Ami used what few cleaning tools were left in the farmhouse to sweep out the largest and most rotten pieces of junk, and made a small bonfire of them in the garden. When she was finished, the farmhouse was not perhaps in a state that someone could live in it, but the floors were at least swept clean, and the building only really needed a thorough cleaning and some repairs.

After finishing with the farmhouse, Ami moved to the line of low stone cottages set a little way back from the road. The buildings each only had a single storey, and apart from where they were missing a few roof tiles, were mostly intact.

The first door Ami tried resisted her attempts to open it, its lock apparently still sound enough to provide some security. She was briefly tempted to just kick the door open, but knowing that she'd only have to log the damage afterwards, she instead knelt to examine the lock. The academy's introduction to lock-craft had been brief, and purely theoretical. Iruka-sensei had explained the basics, most of which Ami had daydreamed through, but there had been no practice, or any details beyond the simplest principles.

Ami had little hope of being able to pick the lock as she knelt, but as she peered through the keyhole, she realised it wasn't a lock at all, but just a latch on the inside of the door, which could be lifted from the outside just by inserting a correctly sized peg. It was more of a mechanism to keep out wildlife and nosy passers-by than a lock intended to keep out a determined intruder. Ami found a twig the right size, and smoothly let herself into the cottage.

The inside was relatively clean and untouched. Whoever once lived there must have packed up before leaving, and the latched door must have done something to keep out destructive animals and vandals, since the few simple pieces of furniture which remained were in good condition. Ami made a note of the missing roof tile, and the water damage to the floor, and left the building.

The second cottage was in a little worse shape, with a broken window and a few more missing tiles. As she used her twig-key to open the door, she noted spider webs deep in the corners of the room, and much of the wooden furniture scattered around the room gave off a rotten smell. Over in the corner of the cottage, hung a mass of dark grey -something- and a cluster of black-red lumps, each about the size and shape of a watermelon.

As Ami peered at the odd mass, wondering if it were a kind of mould, she saw a twitch of movement. Her mind lurched as it attempted to comprehend the odd geometry of the object. She saw a needle-thin stick, twitch against the black leathery lumps, and the entire shape shifted, revealing it to be the body of an enormous spider, as large as a dog, hanging from a dangling bundle of white-grey silk.

Ami screamed. The other shapes twitched in answer, revealing the mess to be a trio of enormous nesting black forest spiders. Her stomach twisted itself into a knot, threatening to make her vomit, and was only being kept at bay by the amount of air rushing through her lungs as she cried out.

Ami darted back out of the house and slammed the door shut behind her, then in a flash of fearful realisation, looked over at the broken window. Ami didn't know whether it was panic or instinct that made her throw a kunai at the empty space in the window, but the moment it passed into the cottage, one of the spiders appeared at the empty frame, and the kunai buried itself to the hilt in the spider's abdomen.

The struck spider fell to the sill, and Ami tossed off another kunai in anticipation of one of the others following it. But the remaining two spiders were not so close behind the first, and the kunai rattled uselessly into the interior of the cottage. Ami saw a long, hairy leg emerge from the window, as a second spider crawled down from the cottage's ceiling, probing carefully around its fallen nest-mate. Ami swallowed the writhing in her gut and jumped into the air with a spin, delivering a textbook academy spinning kick and knocking the creature back into the building.

Ami heard hissing, and took a panting moment to recover her breath. There were still two left, and she had only one kunai - the 'victory' kunai of her genin test. Ami felt around the interior of her pouch, and realised she also had the flare tag from the gate guard. Without pausing to imagine the result, Ami drew the tag, sent a pulse of chakra into the design, scrunched it into a ball, and tossed the balled-up paper in through the broken window.

There was a moment of silence, and then the paper erupted into a fast moving fireball, rocketing upwards until it hit the cottage's tile ceiling, and rebounding, spinning and ricocheting around the inside of the cottage like an errant firework. Ami had to duck a shower of white-hot sparks as the chakra flare passed close by on the inside of the window, and she darted to the side to put her back to the wall.

Ami had never imagined that spiders, of any size, would be able to scream. But as the flare spent its energy bouncing around the inside of the cottage, searing its walls and occupants, the creatures inside gave out constant, breathy shrieks, so high pitched they were almost a hiss. After a few seconds the sound of screams faded, and after several more the riot of the flare died away too, all of the energy that was meant to help the flare gain height spent in a brief, violent, fiery maelstrom.

After half a minute of silence from within, Ami risked a glance through the broken window, and saw that the flare had set several parts of the wooden floor on fire. It also seemed like the webs of the spiders burnt well, as there were several tall blazes hanging from the walls, particularly around the central nest. The flames reached up, blackening the ceiling tiles with ash, and she could see smaller flames spreading to the roof supports.

Ami decided to take some time to herself to vomit, bending over and emptying her stomach. The terror, the violence, and the thought of the hideous creatures more than enough to keep her retching for seconds after she had nothing left to bring up. Finally, she spat, washed her mouth with water from her canteen, and, grimly terrified, began to check the remaining cottages.

Ami found nothing of note in the remaining buildings, and aside for 'one cottage is all burnt up', she had little to add to her list of damages.

Despite the spread of the flames, the lack of fuel in the stone building had made the fire easy for Ami to put out. A chipped bucket of water through the window smothered the flames that covered the wooden floor, and a perhaps ill-advised climb onto the roof let her pour down enough water to dampen the fire that had spread to the ceiling. The nest she let burn itself out, half sure that if she touched it, a wave of tiny, hungry spiders would rush out to devour her.

When Ami began the short hike back to Konoha, the column of smoke had mostly dispersed.

As Ami passed back through the main gates of the hidden village there was a new guard on duty, who inspected her orders and let her go on her way. It had been a long day for her, and she was exhausted, physically and mentally, but she still had to report to the sensei at his post on the wall. She paused on her route to Watchtower Six to buy a slice of melon from a fruit vendor to settle her stomach, and picked up a couple of apples for the sensei as well.

The wall-walk to the top of the watchtower was gruelling, and when Ami reached the top she found Tsuzumi there with Okei, both with their backs to her as they scanned the darkening forests.

"They should make some steps for this," she huffed as she dragged herself over the low wall around the edge of the watchtower, and slumped to the floor.

Okei turned to Tsuzumi, "You didn't tell her about the steps?"

"Ah-ha, it's good training!" Tsuzumi laughed.

Ami just scowled, but her expression unwound itself as she saw the sensei turn to her with his familiar smile.

"Hey, Ami-chan. Good mission?" he asked.

Ami was about to launch into an angry rant, but paused. With the time on the walk back to the village to calm down, and the distance in time and space from the horror she'd felt, the memories of the day were beginning to fade from the raw emotion of visceral experience to something more mellow and more easily digested. She considered the question for a moment, then gave her sensei a thumbs up. "It was cool!"

"Oh? How did it go?" he asked.

"Hm, well, the farmhouse was a dump, so I cleaned it up. But the cool thing was the combat, and the fire," she enumerated.

"Combat?" Tsuzumi asked, his smile disappearing. "Fire?"

"Yeah, one house had giant spiders, huge," she held her arms out to demonstrate. "So I blew them up with Guard-san's flare tag."

Okei turned away from the tree line with a frown. "Giant forest spiders? They shouldn't be so close to the village."

"Yeah, giant," Ami confirmed. "It was okay, I got one with a kunai -shlock- then threw the flare tag into their nest. It was pretty cool."

Tsuzumi's smile was back. "It sounds like you had a good one. My D-ranks were all chasing cats and painting fences."

"Hng, were you bitten?" Okei asked gruffly.

"Nah, they couldn't touch me," Ami bragged, dragging herself up to sit against the wall. "Oh sensei!" Ami tossed Tsuzumi a pair of apples.

"You had a brush with death, kid," Okei said. "Those spiders are venomous, and out there alone, there'd be no one to carry you back for treatment. That's why kids are usually sent out with a team." Okei's last words seemed to be more for Tsuzumi, if the man's glare was anything to go by.

"Ah-ha, it was fine, fine," Tsuzumi said, waving dismissively. "She's a shinobi after all."

"Yeah, it was fine- fine!" Ami confirmed, unconsciously mirroring the dismissive wave with one hand.

"Okay Ami," Tsuzumi said, suddenly serious as he bit into an apple and continuing to speak with his mouth full. "Now you must perform the next part of the mission - the written report part." He tossed her a blank scroll and a pencil. "Write up a full report of everything that happened. If I give it a pass, you can hand it in tomorrow and get the reward. If it's not good enough... you'll have to rewrite it."

Ami frowned and nodded seriously, beginning to scribble on the parchment, as Tsuzumi turned back to the surrounding forest.

"I can't believe forest spiders were nesting so close to an occupied area," Okei said quietly. "That's dangerous."

"Hm. Well, it was an abandoned place after all," Tsuzumi replied.

The two chunin made sparse conversation as the minutes wore on, and Ami continued to scribble her report. Ami unfortunately forgot to include the fact that she'd been responsible for the fire damage to the cottage, but it was otherwise accurate and fairly complete. Eventually Tsuzumi broke off from his watch to read her attempt, shooting her a smile and an approving nod, and dismissed Ami with a demand to report for training the following morning after turning her mission report in.

"And after I finish my shift tomorrow, we'll meet in town and I'll take you out for a victory celebration meal!" Tsuzumi promised.

Ami took a deep breath and lifted her hands to the sky and shouted, "Victory!"


	5. Mission to Swamp Ward 2-1

"Morning Sensei!" Ami called, hauling herself over the watchtower wall into a heap on the floor. The walls of Konoha seemed to be getting easier to climb every day, and Ami had gradually progressed from a tentative crawl, to a stumbling vertical walk, and that morning had practically sprinted up the sheer stone surface.

"Ah, hi Ami-chan," Tsuzumi waved. He was standing in his usual spot beside Okei, staring out at the canopy surrounding Konoha.

"I got my reward sensei," Ami chuckled, holding up a stack of notes and waving them at Tsuzumi, gripping the bundle tightly.

"And you didn't spend it all yet? That's very responsible," Tsuzumi said. He was smiling, but Ami thought he seemed more subdued than usual.

"I gave half to kaa-chan, but I don't know what to spend the rest on. Manju? Or dango? Anpan?" Ami was concentrating deeply on the stack of bills as she listed her options.

"The first thing you should always do is replenish your ninja supplies," Tsuzumi instructed.

"Oh, I should get some new kunai," Ami said brightly. The memory of having too few weapons on the mission of the previous day was still fresh in her mind.

"Hm, and replace your shuriken," Tsuzumi agreed.

"Ah, n-no. I don't think I'll get new shuriken," Ami said hesitantly, looking down at her hands. No longer painful, but still marred by lines.

Tsuzumi's smile became tight, but he stayed silent.

Tsuzumi's idea of training that morning was to have Ami practice her academy taijutsu katas. At times he'd ask Okei to cover for him on watch while he engaged her in brief taijutsu spars, but within the cramped space of the watchtower nest it did little but exercise her blocks. She picked up a few pointers, but Tsuzumi didn't really have a specialised style of his own to instruct her with. Like many career chunin, he had made his way using his own simple academy forms, never branching out or experimenting.

"Hmm, I'm more of a ninjutsu specialist," he admitted in response to Ami's complaints about his taijutsu credentials.

"Oh, sensei! You had to teach me a new jutsu!" Ami said, remembering the stumbling extortion she'd tried on the night of her genin test.

"That's right. I'm going to teach you three new jutsu," Tsuzumi said with a smile. Okei shot the man a concerned glance, then turned his attention back to the forest.

"Teach me sensei!" Ami said, sliding to the ground and crossing her legs.

"Not here," Tsuzumi said, shaking his head and folding his arms. "We need to be outside the village to demonstrate them properly."

"Because... they're too powerful?" Ami asked sceptically.

"Say Ami-chan, how would you like to go on a C-rank mission?" Tsuzumi asked, changing the subject.

Ami bit her lip thoughtfully, remembering the dangers she'd faced on a merely 'D-rank' mission, the previous day. She wanted to challenge her sensei's apparent diversion, but the prospect of a new mission was more interesting.

"What's the reward?" she asked at last.

"Hah! She's a shinobi," Okei chuckled. "Wait, Tsuzumi, you're bringing her with us?"

"Your reward can't be counted in petty material goods, Ami-chan," Tsuzumi said, ignoring Okei's question. He smiled reassuringly, and the expression creased the corners of his eyes. "The benefit will be measured in knowledge, and experience!"

"Umm, so, no money?" Ami guessed.

"And I'll give you three hundred Ryo if you're well behaved," Tsuzumi added.

Ami shrugged. "Okay."

"Tsuzumi, did you clear this with the captain?" Okei asked, more insistently.

"Ah-ha, it'll be fine," Tsuzumi said, waving dismissively.

"Yeah, it's fine-fine," Ami added, lifting her hand to help wave the chunin's concerns away.

Okei pointed at the girl, spluttering. "You can't say it's fine when you're the problem!"

"I'll just name-drop Homura-sama. He's the reason I'm saddled with... my cute student, so it's his problem," Tsuzumi said. "Plus, there'll be plenty of civilians anyway. Officially she can be on the labour team."

Ami looked between the two chunin, confused. "What's the mission?"

Tsuzumi turned to Ami, smiling. "Some of the duty-nin are being sent on an escort mission to Numa-Ku - Swamp Ward Village. We'll be guarding a trade caravan, and some labourers who'll help fix up the road. There'll be eight guards, so it's very safe."

"Huh. That's where my mission was," Ami said, remembering the weed-strewn disused road to Numa-Ku.

"Third-sama made a trade agreement with the shicho of Swamp Ward," Okei said gruffly, not turning from his watch out over the surrounding forest. "This is the first shipment, and we'll help to clean up the road for future cart trains."

"I think the farm you cleaned up is going to be made into an inn," Tsuzumi added.

"It's like," Ami began thoughtfully, then paused, at a loss. "It's like we're all working on little bits of the same big thing."

"That feeling is called being part of a hidden village," Tsuzumi said, smiling. "You've done a small part, but your effort will be felt for a long time, by a lot of people. People are safer because you cleaned out those buildings."

Ami slowly clenched her fist, hardly feeling the dull ache of the well-healed scars.

After lunch, Tsuzumi switched Ami's training. Instead of taijutsu, her sensei had her carrying packs-full of rocks up the side of the wall, which she then had to run around on the ground catching as Tsuzumi threw them over the edge. Tsuzumi called it 'speed training', but Okei called it 'keeping the brat out of our hair', when he didn't think she could hear.

Both the effort of carrying the rocks up the sheer face, and then running frantically after them were exhausting, but as dusk approached and she went home to clean up before dinner, the soreness in her muscles felt somehow comfortable, and she was confident that by now she could beat Forehead, Blondie, or even Sasuke at wall-walking.

# # #

That night, Tsuzumi kept his promise of taking Ami out for a victory feast. Her mother was invited, and once she'd made her protests at being treated, even going as far as trying to sneak Tsuzumi some money, she enjoyed the food almost as much as her daughter.

After dinner, Tsuzumi and Ami said goodbye to Ami's mother, and as a further treat decided to take Ami to a shinobi supplies shop. There weren't many stores open so late at night, but in the hidden village it was always profitable to offer ninja weapons for sale at all hours, and Tsuzumi knew a place where he had a good relationship with the owner.

"Oh, Tsuzumi-san, is this your new student?" came a deep voice as Tsuzumi ushered Ami into the cramped store.

"Yes, this is Ami-chan," Tsuzumi said, approaching to clasp hands with the shopkeeper.

Ami looked around the store with something approaching wonder. Every wall was covered from corner to corner with kunai, packs of shuriken and senbon, paper tags, bags of food pills, blood pills, chakra pills, soldier pills, and individual weapons which became more and more exotic the closer they came to the ceiling.

"So, what can I get for a young shinobi in training?" the man behind the counter asked.

Ami turned to look at her sensei, but he just smiled.

"It's your reward. Get whatever you never want to be without."

Ami held up a scarred hand and began to count off her purchases. "Two kunai- no! Five kunai, senbon, smoke bombs, um, some ninja wire - that looks cool, and explosive tags."

"Ah-ha, Ami," Tsuzumi said, placing his hands on Ami's shoulders and looking up at the shopkeeper. "Everything but the explosive tags."

"But- Sensei!" Ami gasped desperately. "If I didn't have Guard-san's flare I'd be spider food! Wrapped in web and- eugh." Ami paused, for the first time considering the likely consequences of being overwhelmed by the farmhouse spiders.

Tsuzumi seemed to have been considering it as well, as he relented. "Three basic explosive tags," he allowed. "And Ami will promise only to use them when her life is in danger."

Ami nodded gravely, and the shopkeeper began pulling items down from the walls.

"And what about mission supplies?" Tsuzumi asked when Ami was clutching a small bag of her purchases. "We'll be out of Konoha for seven days, travelling a dirt road through dry forests, and later swamp forests. What might you need?"

Ami thought for a moment. "Bug nets?"

"One mosquito net," Tsuzumi confirmed to the shopkeeper. "And where will you sleep?"

"I need a tent," Ami realised. "And a- a soft roll."

"A bedroll," Tsuzumi confirmed.

"Can I really afford all that, sensei?" Ami asked.

"Hmm, I'll give you a loan."

Ami's first mission payment covered almost all of her camping supplies in the end, and there was so little left to pay off that the store owner let her take it for free, with the promise of repeat business later on. As well as ninja tools and camping equipment, Ami wisely added a pair of generic dark-coloured outfits to her pile to use as a change of clothes on the road.

She barely felt the weight as she carried her new equipment home escorted by her sensei, and she was almost buzzing with excitement as she slipped between her threadbare sheets. The following day she was going on a real mission. And she was going to learn new jutsu. And with a veritable army of ninja, there was no chance of anything going wrong.


	6. Mission to Swamp Ward 2-2

_Double update today._

 _. . ._

Tsuzumi collected Ami from her home early, hours before dawn, hours before they were even due to leave. The labour team weren't yet awake, let alone assembled and ready to walk. The extra hours proved useful in the end though, as Tsuzumi spent the time double checking Ami's supplies, and drilling her in the kind of protective formations, scout patterns, and watch rotations the guards would use as they protected the caravan team.

Ami had shaken off the last threads of weariness when they finally rounded the corner, and got their first glimpse of the large shinobi squad waiting patiently at the gate assembly point.

There were seven of them, eight with the addition of Tsuzumi, who explained they were broken down into two teams. Tsuzumi's team consisted of three duty chunin under Captain Bekko, who would handle the mundane protection and scouting needs of the expedition. There was also what Tsuzumi called the ninjutsu team, a group of duty chunin who knew a handful of elemental ninjutsu useful for more than just direct combat. It was their job to lend their techniques in support of the civilian labourers in repairing the road and overcoming other obstacles.

"Tsuzumi, at last," Captain Bekko shouted from the back of the assembled cart train. "Say goodbye to your daughter and get into formation,"

Ami felt an odd butterfly sensation in her chest, which she put down to nerves at the prospect of being banned from the mission.

"Ah-ha, Bekko-san, this is Ami, my cute genin student. I was intending to bring her with us," Tsuzumi said.

"Your student? Oh, you're the one with that arrangement. Well, that's out of the question, she'll have to stay behind." Captain Bekko was a middle aged chunin, with a large nose, and brown hair which rose up from his head in large spikes, like the foliage of an exotic bush. His mouth was set in a grimace, and from the creases along his cheeks, it looked like it was an expression he was used to.

"Ah-ha ha, I'm afraid Mitokado Homura-sama has made her my responsibility," Tsuzumi said, his smile becoming strained. "I was hoping she could just be officially part of the civilian labour team, but if you insist on informing Mitokado-sama of the change-"

"Ah, whatever!" Bekko said, and spat on the ground. "It's always politics around here these days. Fine, but if she interferes with the mission, I'm putting the complaint in both your files."

"Thanks, Captain!" Tsuzumi said with a grin. He placed his hand on Ami's head as they approached the caravan, and managed to ruffle her hair before she knocked it away.

And so they set off, and it was slow going. For the first few hours they found themselves having to stop every few miles, so that the labourers could dig up one of the large shrubs that had colonised the road, or rake down a ridge that had formed in the mud, or fill in a rut that would break the wheel of any cart that rolled in to it.

Ami initially took up a position by her sensei at the rear of the convoy, but he soon disabused her of the idea that she'd be enjoying a relaxed stroll through the woods.

"Carry this," Tsuzumi said, handing Ami a large bolt of cloth, wrapped in wax paper and canvas.

"But- there's space on the wagon," Ami said, outrage momentarily losing to confusion.

"It's training," her sensei explained curtly. Since the start of the mission, Tsuzumi had seemed more tense and serious than at any other time Ami had seen him. In place of his usual smile was an expression that was more like the ghost of a smile, or something that merely gave the impression of a smile.

Ami frowned, but didn't otherwise complain as she wrangled the bolt of cloth through the ties of her backpack, itself already heavy with her camping supplies. She sweated as she trudged along, eventually asking if she could train with something lighter - which would describe virtually every other item on the carts, save those she had no chance of lifting at all, like the large water barrels.

Tsuzumi relented, relieving Ami of the bolt for a half hour break, and used Ami's new patience, born of gratitude, to give her a lecture on long distance hiking, and escort missions in general.

"Avoid stepping on even small stones. Are your legs tired? Try altering your gait to use different muscles. Your gait? It's the style you walk. See- the Captain has a long, stiff gate, but the workers have a loose relaxed gate. If you henge into the appearance of someone, you must also adapt their gait." Tsuzumi's lectures were always quiet, dense, and peppered with brief questions. "You know, the back of the party is usually seen as the worst place to guard, because of the dust kicked up, and-"

"And the poop. I'd noticed sensei," Ami said, wilting.

"New training!" Tsuzumi said cheerfully. "Henge into the Captain, and practice copying his gait."

"Hm!" Ami hummed enthusiastically, before pushing her fingers together in a seal. "Henge!"

Ami transformed into an older, lumpier version of the captain, wearing a teal flak-jacket rather than the standard chunin dark green. The henge was completely unconvincing, but she at least looked human, and Tsuzumi withheld criticism for the sake of the exercise.

The captain turned around at the sudden pop of chakra smoke, and his face darkened as he saw Ami.

"Tsuzumi!" The captain was agitated, but eventually grew to accept the girl walking beside him, even giving her tips. "No! Your stride is too stiff now," he snapped. "Make a clone so you can compare."

Ami's hands moved through hand seals, and a second lumpy captain joined the first. "Ahh! My henge is terrible!" she cried.

"They're dismal!" the captain agreed.

Ami refreshed the henge and summoned another clone, inspecting it for any improvement. She grunted and tried again. Soon a small army of misshapen captains were marching at the head of the convoy, the real one growing increasingly red-faced with every grotesque new parody of him.

"I never thought I'd start to hate the sight of my own face," he said. "Go and annoy your sensei for a change."

When Ami dropped back, her sensei decided it was time to carry the bolt again.

Their progress Eastward was steady, but slow. For most of the journey the largest problems were fallen trees, which each had to be cut into pieces and rolled out of the way. Then they came to the stream. At some point in the past, a stream had diverted from its previous path and cut clear across the road, cutting a furrow two feet deep, filled with rushing water, and turning the dirt road for meters either side to thick mud - dangerous to the animals, and impassable to the carts.

"Ninjutsu team!" the captain cried, and the four reserve ninja formed up before the band of heavy mud.

The first of the shinobi stepped forward, a man with overly large glasses, wearing a green combat helmet and an antique style of flak jacket. His hands flashed rapidly through hand seals, then held his hands out straight ahead, the fingertips slightly bent into an impression of claws. "Suiton: Filtration technique!"

Water droplets immediately began to form on the surface of the mud, and then began to fall upwards, like inverse rain. The chunin held the technique for several minutes, his stamina visibly flagging towards the end, but when he released the technique the mud was almost completely dry.

A second shinobi stepped forward, a broad-shouldered overweight man with a tiny, diamond shaped beard and a blue hat. He pushed his hands into a single seal, and then slapped them into the ground, shouting "Doton: Packed Earth!"

The ground reacted as if it had been trodden on by an invisible giant. The surface was crushed down several inches, compressing the dried mud to a dense, almost stone-like consistency.

"Did you learn about elemental ninjutsu in the academy?" Tsuzumi asked Ami quietly as the earth user performed several more techniques, drawing large ramparts from the packed earth, angled to form a short bridge over the crashing stream.

"Yeah-yeah," Ami said absently. "Fire, earth wind, all that," She was watching the display intently, and she jumped when the remaining two ninjutsu chunin shouted the name of a fire technique, and breathed out twin jets of blue flame onto the rough bridge-structure.

"Everyone has their own natural elemental affinity," Tsuzumi explained. "A shinobi is usually only able to master their natural element. They can learn from the others, but a foreign element is always harder to use."

Ami nodded along, remembering something like that from her academy classes. "What's my nature, Sensei?"

"There's a special kind of paper that will help you find out, but... it's expensive," Tsuzumi said. "Tonight I'll try and teach you one of each, and we'll guess."

Ami shrugged. At home she was used to doing things the cheap way, and the prospect of learning some impressive jutsu put butterflies in her stomach.

Ami wandered over to the traders after a brief stop for lunch and tried to engage them in conversation. Captain Bekko shot her a warning glance about bothering the merchants who were paying for the mission, but there was little to worry about, as they firmly refused to engage her in conversation, giving curt replies and turning their noses up at her. The day passed easily, despite the occasional burdens her sensei made her carry, and Ami almost did feel like she was on a relaxing hike.

An hour before dusk, the party broke from the road and began to make camp in a clearly beside it. The stream they'd bridged earlier in the day had meandered back towards the road, and now the beasts were tied beside it, watering themselves happily downstream from where the labour team were collecting water for their cooking fires. Ami ate a crude meal from her supplies, and as soon as she felt like enough time had passed approached Tsuzumi to bug him about the training he'd promised.

"Okay," Tsuzumi agreed readily, and led Ami to a place by one of the small camp fires near the perimeter of the camp. He tapped the grass with his foot to indicate where Ami should sit, then took up a position in front of her. "This isn't really a jutsu as such, kind of just a basic nature transformation exercise," Tsuzumi began, lifting his canteen and pouring it over the sleeve of his blue undershirt. "But it's useful in the field, so we call it the blissful drip technique. Its purpose is to restore your clothing to a dry state after you take a splash."

Tsuzumi pressed his hands through a series of slow seals, allowing Ami to see and remember each, before finally stating: "Suiton: Blissful Drip no jutsu," and holding out his hand. Tsuzumi's outstretched index finger began to drip, and the drip slowly grew to a slow trickle. He held the jutsu for a minute before offering his sleeve for Ami's inspection. She found it to be completely dry.

"Sensei, that's so lame," Ami said.

"Oh, I see. You've hurt my feelings," Tsuzumi said, turning on the spot to face away from the girl. When he spun back around he was holding a bucket, which he emptied over her, eliciting a shriek. "When you learn it, maybe you'll think differently."

Ami wordlessly spat a mouthful of water at her sensei.

"Sit, and cross your legs, and close your eyes," he said, pointing at a patch of dry ground closer to the fire. Ami moved to it from the now wet ground, mumbling under breath.

"I don't like mission-sensei," Ami groused.

"This technique requires the most chakra control of all three I'll show you, and since we don't know your affinity, that might make it the hardest for you."

"Hmph."

"First, Ram seal. Mould your chakra. Let it fill your hara," Tsuzumi said gently.

"I know how to make chakra, stupid!" Ami said, dripping unhappily.

"Don't embarrass me in front of the other chunin. Now, make the Dog seal. Concentrate on the thought of water while you hold it. Sloshing, flowing. Raindrops, lakes, ocean waves-"

"Sensei, I think I need to pee."

"This technique also redirects pee."

"That's gross, Sensei."

"Are you concentrating?"

Tsuzumi took a seat by the fire and pulled out a paper-wrapped bundle, which he opened to reveal a sandwich. "Hold the seal until you feel the chakra ripple," Tsuzumi said between bites. "That will let you know it's ready for water release. It might take a while."

Twenty five minutes later, Ami was still holding the seal with an expression of angry determination.

"I'm cold," she huffed, eyes still closed.

"You can take a break. Move closer to the fire, and try again."

Ami shuffled forward on her backside and began the process again. This time she focused on the dampness against her skin, the thought of a wet dog shaking from a swim, the shape of the seal, and let her muscles relax and become fluid. Several more minutes passed before Ami spoke up with shaky excitement.

"S-sensei! I think I did it!" she gasped, as the chakra took on a rippling sensation.

"Oh? The rest of the technique is where you need the control. Move the chakra around your body, like washing out your mouth. Swirl it around slowly."

A pinched expression appeared on Ami's face, and a moment later water droplets began spraying from her skin, like fleas leaping from a wet dog.

"You're letting too much leak. Keep it more contained. The water's soaked deep into your clothes, it likes it in there, you need to be slow and gentle to tempt it out."

The spray faded, and ripples of freely running liquid water began running over Ami's clothes.

"Oh, you got it. Now, roll it around. Your chakra is a broom, and you've got to sweep the water off your body. Go slowly so none is left behind, then when you've got it all, move the chakra to your finger and spray."

Ami's eyes opened, she held up her hand to point at her sensei, and the slick second skin of water covering her hand fountained away in a spray of heavy droplets.

"Spray!" Ami laughed as the lukewarm water splashed into the man's face, dripping down over his sandwich.

Tsuzumi's usual smile became slanted.

"You're a good sensei!" Ami said, still flush with the effort of concentration and her proximity to the fire.

"Thanks, Ami-chan," Tsuzumi said, drying his face on his shirt.

"Is water my affinity?" Ami asked brightly.

"Huh? No way!" Tsuzumi scoffed. "That took you way too long."

"So if it took me too long, I must be the opposite? Fire?"

"It doesn't work like that. Your natural affinity is easy, and all the others are just as hard. You're just bad at nature manipulation."

Ami scowled. "Okay, what's next."

"Hm, it's getting late. You should definitely set up your tent now."

"Oh, come on!" Ami groused, but her sensei was already moving off to take his own advice, leaving her alone by the fire, with only the sound of crackling wood and the low murmurs of nearby conversations.

Ami spent several minutes getting tangled up in her tent, took a short break, and then began her second attempt, which was much more successful. She lay on her bedroll inside the tent and kicked off her sandals, enjoying the cosy feeling of being safe and warm, while also being out in the wilderness, far from home.

. . .

The following morning, after breaking camp and setting off on the road, Tsuzumi immediately resumed his instruction.

"Ah, since you took so long with water, we'll do the next nature manipulation while we travel," Tsuzumi said, from their new position flanking one of the carts. "Sit on the cart," he said, pointing at the closest cart, piled precariously with crates.

Ami jumped up to the highest crate, sat down, and crossed her legs.

"Good work. Now, form the Ram seal, feel your-"

"Yeah, yeah," Ami said, closing her eyes.

"You're so rude to your sensei," Tsuzumi said, feigning hurt. "I don't know if I should teach you this one, after all."

"I'm sorry sensei," Ami droned out unconvincingly.

"Hm, okay. Next make the Snake seal, and concentrate on earth. Dirt between your toes, digging in sand, falling on pebbles, being buried alive..."

"That's scary!" Ami complained, opening her eyes.

"Concentrate!"

Ami closed her eyes and concentrated. A moment later they flicked open.

"Ugh, I think I got it," she said, standing up.

"Huh? Already?" Tsuzumi asked.

The heavy set man from the ninjutsu squad turned slightly in interest.

"How do I get rid of it?" Ami groaned, clutching at her stomach. "It feels like I swallowed a brick."

"Oh?" the heavy-set chunin muttered.

"Jump down and send it to your feet," Tsuzumi instructed with a wave of his hand. "I guess maybe you're earth type."

Ami jumped down and squatted. A second later the ground beneath her writhed and twisted, pinching up into two spots of packed earth below her feet, which then cracked upwards into jagged pieces.

"Earthie!" the heavy set man yelled in a ridiculously deep voice. He leapt over to Ami, grabbed her in both hands and stuffed her under one arm. "I'm gonna talk to your student Tsuzumi, earthie to earthie. I gotta tell her some stuff before the earth haters sap her spirit."

"Ah-ha, but-" Tsuzumi began, but the man was already jumping away into the forest by the side of the road.

"Earth jutsu suck!" shouted one of the other ninjutsu nin, his tone light.

"Close your ears, little one!" the heavy-set man boomed as he disappeared between the trees.

"Ah- n- nothing dangerous!" Tsuzumi shouted after them, but they were already gone.

The caravan continued on for an hour without further sight of Ami or the chunin, but their speed was such that the missing pair couldn't possibly fall behind. The occasional sounds of explosions, followed by shrieking laughter and applause let the party keep track of them, and attested to their keeping pace.

"If this were a stealth mission..." the captain began darkly.

"I wouldn't have brought her, it's fine, it's fine," Tsuzumi waved dismissively.

The violent noises didn't continue for too long, and soon the bearded chunin was bouncing back out of the trees carrying Ami. The girl was covered in a fine layer of soil, her hair was littered with clumps of earth, and her hands were covered in a layer of dirt which seemed to flow and follow the shape of her hands unerringly as she held them up and wiggled her fingers.

"Look sensei! Muddy hands technique!"

One of the other ninjutsu-specialist chunin snorted.

"That's Earth Gauntlets technique!" the heavy-set chunin bellowed, resuming his position. "You gotta respect the earth techniques! Though, uh, I guess you gotta work on your chakra a lot before you get it."

Ami bowed to the man. "Yes, cool-sensei."

"Wh-why aren't I 'cool-sensei'?" Tsuzumi complained.

"Eh, you're just the sensei. You don't need a name."

"I have such a rude student."

A little later that day, Okei returned early from his scout rotation, with news of a small clearing, and a stranger up ahead. The figure appeared alone, and unarmed. Not deeming him a threat, the caravan continued. As they drew parallel to the opening in the trees, they came to a halt, the captain peering into the clearing warily.

Sitting in clearing on a low, flat stone was a figure dressed in a red robe with a maroon sash, clothes most commonly worn by monks. His long sleeves completely engulfed his hands, and he wore a conical reed hat pulled low over his face.

"Tsuzumi, go check it out," the captain snapped quietly.

Tsuzumi walked forward without another word and approached the figure. The distance was only a few dozen meters, and Ami could just make out the conversation.

"Ah-ha, nice day isn't it?" Tsuzumi asked conversationally.

The figure remained silent for several uncomfortable seconds, before a voice lilted out from beneath the hat in high, gentle tones. "There are no good days. There are no bad days. Good, and bad, these are only figments of our minds, and vexing ones at that."

Tsuzumi turned a perplexed glance back at captain Bekko, who simply shrugged.

"Even the difference between day and night does not really exist," the voice continued, "yet we spend our days in fear of the night, and our nights longing for the day."

"Ah-ha ha-ha," Tsuzumi chuckled out awkwardly. "I'm Tsuzumi, what's your name, Monk-san?"

"The word people foolishly call me, is Koka," the figure said, though he didn't look up.

"What brings you out here, Koka-san?" Tsuzumi asked with a smile.

"Sometimes I come here to meditate," he replied, sharply. "And you. Why are you here?"

"Ah- as you can see, we're a trade caravan," Tsuzumi said, gesturing at the carts and animals.

"The road to trade is the road back to dissatisfaction," the man said disapprovingly. "The broken road is the path to peace. The broken wheel. The broken back. You should go back the way you came."

"But lots of people are relying on us, Koka-san," Tsuzumi argued pleasantly. "When we make our trades, everyone will be enriched."

"You are walking nightmares, and you aim to bring your nightmare to my restful dreamers." The old man's voice was no longer gentle, but bitter, his tone aggressive, though still he made no movement. "My people have finally found peace. Please, do not make noise in their gentle night."

Becoming uneasy, Tsuzumi tensed, and took a half step towards the figure. "Uh, could you remove your hat, Koka-san?"

"No," the man said, making no move to touch his hat.

"Ah-ha, but Koka-san, I haven't even seen your face," Tsuzumi said, his hand inching towards the edge of the hat. The old man made no move to avoid or stop him, and with the tip of his finger, Tsuzumi flicked the lip of the hat up.

Underneath the hat was a featureless dummy made of woven reeds.

Tsuzumi jumped back, formed a hand seal, and flickered through the air back to the caravan, taking a defensive stance as he landed and scanned the tree line.

"A clone?" the captain asked, moving up beside Tsuzumi and drawing a kunai.

Ami drew a kunai of her own, letting the chakra sustaining the mud gloves fade and fall away.

"Ah, it could be, could be," Tsuzumi said. "There was no chakra cloud."

"Okei and Hayase, Iwana and Saisu, perimeter scout," the captain barked. "Tsuzumi and Yajirobee, with me. Daikoku and Ami, guard the caravan."

Everyone leapt away at once, and Ami jumped up onto the tallest stack of crates, looking around alertly. Moments later she was joined by the heavy earth-specialist.

Ami saw the captain and his retinue head carefully towards the dummy, moving in staggered sprints, keeping watch for traps or ambushes. There turned out to be no traps, and when the three of them inspected and then dismantled the dummy, her tension broke, and she finally relaxed her white-knuckled grip on the kunai.

The dummy turned out to be just an ordinary scarecrow, wrapped in old clothes. The encounter had offered no threat at all, but left them all with a vague feeling of unease which persisted until that night, when they stopped to make camp.

Ami felt shaken as she set up her tent by one of the camp's flickering cooking fires, but not so shaken as to forget her sensei's promise.

"Jutsu!" she said firmly, standing before her sensei.

"Ah, not now Ami-chan," Tsuzumi said. His smile was absent completely, and he seemed troubled.

"But this was going to be the easy one," Ami whined.

Tsuzumi frowned, an alien expression on his gentle face. "You don't have to be a brat about it."

Ami bit back a smart response, then paused. "Are you worried about the scarecrow, Sensei?"

Tsuzumi turned to her and smiled unconvincingly. "Mm. A little. It's unusual. The mission wasn't meant to have ninja involved."

"But he wasn't dangerous, eh Sensei? It's fine, fine!" she said, patting his arm. "Why don't we learn a jutsu to take our minds off him."

Tsuzumi smiled, his eyes crinkling. He paused to think and compose himself.

"Okay! This technique is called..." Tsuzumi's hands moved through seals, faster than before, but Ami was still able to track Ram, Dragon, Snake, then he slapped the earth as he said, "Doton: Open Pit technique."

The ground shook and fell away from Tsuzumi's hand, opening a circular hole a foot wide and about as deep.

Without waiting for instruction, Ami made the seals, gathered a small mass of earth chakra, and slapped it into the ground, propelling it as deep as she could.

Like with her sensei's technique, a hole opened, though hers was barely three inches wide. Though the firelight didn't reach all the way to the bottom of the hole, she could tell it was at least two feet deep, and probably more.

"You sent it too deep," Tsuzumi said, peering down the hole. "And that's not enough chakra."

Ami glared and performed the technique again, this time opening a pit two feet across and almost as deep. She yelped as the spot where she sat began to cave downwards, but the hole stopped expanding, and she ended up sitting on the edge with her feet dangling down.

"Good, but if you're going to open a big one, give the chakra some forward momentum, or you'll fall in!" Tsuzumi said.

Ami stared down into the shallow pit. "So, why did we make a hole, Sensei?"

"Ah- this is a E-rank technique, most often used as a way of quickly digging a latrine."

"Y-you taught me a poop jutsu!" Ami pointed accusingly.

"It can also be used like this," Tsuzumi said, flashing through more hand seals, this time too fast and unfamiliar for Ami to pick them apart. The air above his small open pit shimmered, and then the false image of a solid dirt surface faded into view, covering the edges, and concealing the hole.

"Huh. Sneaky pit," Ami said, passing her hand into the ground over the hole, watching as it moved unopposed through the illusion.

"With a larger hole, you can create a crude trap. Also if cast in muddy ground, filtered water will be left at the bottom of the pit, that can be useful if you have no clean water source."

Ami wandered away wordlessly and began creating pits of various sizes, at increasing distances from her.

"A-Ami! Don't do it under any trees okay!" Tsuzumi shouted after all.

A beat passed. "Heh heh heh. Okay, Sensei."

"And try to learn it without saying the technique name!"

No trees fell that night, and Tsuzumi kept a careful watch over his student until she returned, her chakra depleted, and her hair and clothes covered in dirt. Ami fell asleep content that night, feeling at east in the presence of so many workers and guards, but the chunin squads were uneasy, and debated with each other in low voices until the fires died down.


	7. Mission to Swamp Ward 2-3

Nothing threatening had happened during the third day of the journey, no dark cloud on the horizon. The atmosphere in the party had been light at first, with only another day to reach their destination. The guards quietly joked with each other, the labourers sung as they took to their work, even the animals seemed contented, having finally settled into the start-stop pace made necessary by the poor quality of the road.

Spirits fell somewhat as they neared midday. The terrain had been slowly changing over the course of the morning. The clearing they had passed the day before turned out to be merely the first of many, and as they travelled the open spaces sank lower into the ground, taking on standing water.

The vegetation changed. The light undergrowth that surrounded Konoha for miles became a sickly lurid green grass, dotted with rice lilies and cottongrass, and reeds sprang out from the deeper water. Flies began to become a problem for the group, with roaming bands of mosquitoes descending occasionally on the party, and clouds of buzzing blue-backs, which would land and swarm on the shirts of the guards and labourers alike, hanging from between the shoulder blades in pendulous clusters where they weren't easily brushed off. Ami found the early afternoon miserable, having long since tired of smacking at mosquito bites and trying to keep the flies from crawling on her.

Ami was starting to reach the end of her patience, but paradoxically, the deeper they travelled into the wetlands, the less of the problem the flies became, thinning out until they were barely above the level seen around Konoha. When Ami mentioned the fact, Tsuzumi explained about ecosystems, how the fish, frogs, and other predators living in the swamps fed on the flies, and grew in number until they reached an equilibrium. Ami digested the information with every other scrap of knowledge let slip by those around her, and her complaints grew fewer as the incessant insects diminished.

Eventually the sun began to sink below the level of the trees, and though it was hours until it would be truly dark, the captain held up a hand and called a halt to the caravan.

"We should make camp here," he called across the gathered group. "It's just four hours to the Numa-Ku. We'll set off at dawn, and make the town by business hours."

The caravan broke into a dry area beside the road, and the workers and traders moved automatically into the routine of making fires and setting tents. The mud and humidity hung on them all so heavily that Ami didn't even ask her sensei for training, though she did make a brief attempt at using the Drip Redirection technique to sap the clinging sweat from her skin, only to fail for reasons she didn't have the energy to ask about.

o o o

The sentries had been set, and the shinobi guards were hours into their sleep rotation when Ami woke up, shocked awake by a nightmare. There was something indescribable in the air. A sickening pressure, both like and unlike the humidity. Ami's stomach knotted in a sensation that recalled some of her worst, earliest memories, and for a moment she thought she heard a woman's panicked screaming. The imaginary sound soon gave way to real yells of alarm from outside.

"-something in the trees," an unfamiliar voice cried.

"Defensive positions!" captain Bekko shouted.

Ami stood, stumbling out of her tent as she strapped her equipment pouch around her waist. She stood in the middle of the camp site, surrounded by figures running around and lighting lanterns. Captain Bekko was standing on top of one of the carts, using the high ground to look above the tall grass and reeds into the surrounding darkness, holding a burning stick like a torch behind and above him.

Two of the ninjutsu team members had scaled trees, and she could see them hanging from the bark, looking outwards for sight of danger in the darkness. The atmosphere was oppressive, a weighty sensation of dread and despair crushing down on her, as heavy as a waterfall. There was no sign of her sensei or the other guards in the darkness, and Ami had to assume they were away scouting the forest, or hidden beyond her ability to detect.

All of the guards seemed focused on the surrounding woodlands, on watch for approaching enemies. Only Ami saw the arm. Descending silently out of the darkness above, a giant hand the size of one of the cart oxen came drifting down like clawed smoke.

It took a choked moment before Ami could even scream, and by then it was too late. The enormous fingers wrapped around the captain from behind, completely engulfing him before he'd sensed more than a slight shift in the air. Ami thought she heard a sickening crack over the sound of her scream, and the arm withdrew upwards, taking the body of the captain with it.

The captain's torch, sticking upwards out of the closed hand like a plucked daisy, illuminated its owner. There, high in the canopy, was an enormous pale figure, naked and sexless. Its skin as white as a corpse, but bruised and blemished in random spots, and a head of long, tangled black hair masked any face the thing might have had. Six long, bony arms dangled down from its sides, each ending a hand of swollen knuckles and cracked yellow fingernails.

The figure had no visible legs, only thighs that narrowed and twisted to blackened points before the knee, and it dangled impossibly from a length of knotted pink flesh, which found its source in a six-foot gash across the figure's stomach. Ami couldn't stop screaming. She covered her eyes with her hands and crouched to the ground.

After the crest of her sick terror had passed, washed away by a cresting wave of adrenaline, Ami began trying to get control of herself. She could feel her pulse beating through her body like fingers on a table, and her breaths came quick and uncontrolled. She pulled her hands away from her face to take a glance around at her surroundings, and darted beneath one of the carts, hoping for the protection a solid roof would give her from the hanging horror. From her hiding place, Ami saw two of the duty chunin appear, throwing blades and shuriken up at the creature, before darting away from slow, grasping hands.

Roused by the disturbance, Ami saw labourers stumbling from their own tents and looking around dumbly in the darkness. She tried to shout a warning to them when she saw white fingers seeking downwards, stretching for the head of one of the taller workers, but he seemed oblivious to the threat, unused to looking upwards for potential danger, and Ami steeled herself before running out.

She sprinted at the man and a second later rammed into his hips, her shoulder ploughing into his stomach. She knocked the wind out of him, but also knocked him to the ground, out of the monster's grasp. She rolled onto her back in time to see probing fingers waving through the air mere feet above her. She gave a choked yell, and a moment later she saw a pair of fireballs fly from the surrounding trees at the hanging arm.

The arm vanished.

There was no cloud of chakra smoke, or flicker of movement. The figure simply faded to nothing, as if it had never been there. A moment later, the captain's body fell to earth with a wet thump, and Ami was left with the sound of her own heartbeat and ragged breathing.

"-perimeter!"

"-civilians under the carts!"

"Where the hell-"

On some level, Ami knew she was hyperventilating. She struggled to control her breathing, but the next few minutes were a blur of motion and panic. She found herself stuffed under one of the carts, surrounded by tense workers and one of the traders who was accompanying the goods. The caravan beasts were frantic, stamping the ground, their breath steaming, but they seemed securely tied.

Ami rose to a crouch and staggered out from under the cart, approaching Okei, who was standing guard nearby.

"Sensei! Where's sensei!" Ami shouted, frantic.

Okei didn't even spare her a glance, his vision roaming between trees and canopy, where lanterns now dangled from the branches to remove any dark hiding places above.

"He's heading back to Konoha. He's going to bring a jonin to sort this fucked up mess out," Okei said flatly, finally glancing down at her. "Good work back there."

Ami grimaced. She felt like she was going to be sick. The only sound circling her mind was the wet smacking noise the captain had made when he fell.

"Where did it go?" Ami asked, shakily.

"Somewhere, nowhere," Okei said absently. "We don't even know it was here to begin with, damn genjutsu."

"But, it ki-, it kill-" Ami whined.

"We don't know anything," Okei snapped. "We'll just wait 'til a jonin gets here. Hey, Ami, there's a keg of... special medicine in that cart. Bring it to the civilians eh? Check they're all okay."

Ami nodded. Despite the chunin's coddling, she knew what alcohol was, and the workers seemed grateful as she rolled the keg beneath the cart, where they indulged in the oldest, simplest treatment for shock they knew. The merchants were clearly disturbed, shaking and barely able to speak, but the labour teams seemed to be dealing with the danger more capably, and nobody among them was physically hurt. Ami returned to her spot beneath of the cart to wait out the night, a useless kunai held in each hand, and it was dawn before Tsuzumi returned with reinforcements.

Ami's sensei flickered into camp just as the sun's first light began to filter through the trees. The lanterns and torches had long since spluttered out. The civilian crew had achieved some fitful sleep beneath the carts, helped by sips of strong liquor and the communal murmur of their breathing, but Ami had barely even closed her eyes to blink for the entire duration, and the other ninja guards had also remained alert as well.

Behind Tsuzumi was an unfamiliar middle-aged man, wearing a Konoha flak-jacket. A tight pony-tail ascended from the back of his dark hair, its ends styled into points, or horns. A slim patch of hair masqueraded as a beard on his chin, and he wore a stern expression on his narrow face. He carried a large scroll on a strap across his shoulders, as well as a pair of equipment pouches at his belt.

The short water specialist, Yajirobee, leapt down to greet them. In the absence of Captain Bekko, Yajirobee seemed to have stepped in to take command of the mission as a whole.

"Parrot, goldfish, sunrise," he said, his posture tense.

"Apple, tiger lilly, ah- canary. It's fine, it's fine, it's me," Tsuzumi said, giving Yajirobee an appeasing wave, then gestured to the dark haired man behind him. "This is Nara Suzaku."

The newcomer stepped forward, looking around at the mess of the camp.

Yajirobee stepped forward. "Nara-san. Thank you for coming. Please take command of the mission."

"It's no trouble," Suzaku said, easily. The man's expression was more severe than his words, and he performed a quick assessment of the situation before he began rattling off orders in a voice that conveyed quiet confidence. "Tsuzumi, do a head count of the civilians. Iwana, bleed tests - your unit, then the duty unit, then the civilians. Why is a child here?"

"Ah- she's my student. She came as a training exercise," Tsuzumi said, moving towards the gathered group of workers and traders.

"Who first saw the apparition?" Suzaku asked finally, looking around as the fire-ninjutsu specialist, Iwana, began moving between the chunin, making small cuts on their forearms with a kunai.

"I heard a scream, and when I turned it was there," Yajirobee began explaining. "That was the first any of us knew about it."

"Who screamed?" Suzaku asked.

Ami swallowed heavily.

"It must've been one of the civvies-" Daikoku, the heavy earth specialist began, but was interrupted.

Ami raised her hand. She tried to speak, but felt something choke her throat and had to cough before continuing. "I screamed, Nara-san." Her voice was very small.

The jonin approached her, one eyebrow raised. "Tell me what you saw."

Ami took a deep breath to try and free the butterflies trapped in her stomach before speaking. "I saw... a giant arm, creeping down-" she mimed the movement with her own arm, twitching and jerking her fingers in the unnatural motion she'd seen in the creature. "He squeezed captain-san, and lifted him up, and I saw it above - the monster."

"Describe it."

"Uh- six arms man, no legs, hanging- hanging from-" Ami felt like she must be turning green. She swallowed heavily and breathed deeply to settle her nausea.

"Hanging from its guts, wrapped around a branch," Daikoku finished for her. "No way it could take the weight if it were real. We threw kunai at it, nothing, it only vanished when Iwana spat a fireball its way."

"To save me," Ami added quietly.

"How did it dispel?" Suzaku asked.

"No smoke, it just faded away, like a genjutsu," Daikoku said.

Suzaku seemed to think for a minute, pacing around in a slow circle, during which time Tsuzumi returned to tell him that all of the civilians were accounted for. Tsuzumi moved behind Ami and rested a hand on the top of her head, which she tried to brush away. Iwana, the fire-jutsu specialist returned half a minute later, facing Suzaku to report.

"Everyone's taking wounds normally," Iwana said.

"Huh?" Ami grunted, looking at the Iwana, who was wiping blood from his kunai.

"No clones, no henges," Tsuzumi said quietly, leaning down to whisper into the girl's ear. Her mouth snapped shut with realisation. Few clones of any variety would bleed convincingly from a cut, and the skill to sustain a henge through an injury was beyond many shinobi.

"Fine. Show me the body," Suzaku said.

Yajirobee led the jonin to where the body of Captain Bekko had been moved, and Ami turned away as Suzaku uncovered the corpse and began to examine it. It took several minutes before Suzaku was satisfied, but eventually he returned to the camp, pacing as he thought.

"So, ah-ha, what attacked us? Was it a genjutsu, after all?" Tsuzumi asked, wearing the weakest attempt at a smile Ami had ever seen on him.

Suzaku only paced for several seconds in silence, considering. "No. The injuries on Bekko's body are entirely consistent with your descriptions. Given that it attacked in a physical way, we can rule out an immaterial clone variant. Given that it ignored thrown weapons and vanished so completely, we can rule out a physical clone variant. Given that it vanished without smoke, we can rule out a traditional summons. It seems that it might be a type of demonic creature."

"A demon?" Daikoku asked.

Suzaku looked around the camp, gauging the distance of the civilians from where he stood before continuing, his face a stern mask. "Everything that has happened here, and everything I'm about to tell you is to be considered a B-rank secret. Yajirobee, you'll brief the civilians about the restrictions and penalties before we reach Numa-Ku."

Tsuzumi leaned down to whisper an explanation into Ami's ear while Yajirobee asked a question Ami didn't catch. "Telling a B-rank will get you fined and locked up Ami. This is serious."

"I know, sensei!" Ami hissed back.

When Ami turned her attention back to the group, Yajirobee was nodding.

"To answer, there a type of creature called a doki. They're demons, used by certain people to fight in battles, or perform assassinations," Suzaku said darkly.

"Like, the nine-" a long-haired chunin began, before being interrupted by Suzaku. Ami remembered him as the one who'd helped fire the clay bridge the previous day.

"No. Not like that. Much weaker, and less dangerous," Suzaku snapped. "This is the most monstrous one I've heard of, but Konoha-nin have encountered them before, in battles against enemies who used them as summons. We have no information on their source, and none have been seen free, but the substance of their chakra feels different to that of a certain other demon, so they may have a different origin."

"How can they be fought effectively?" Yajirobee asked.

"Our records show they can be fought in the same way as any summoned ally, by treating them as unusually large and problematic close-quarters fighters. Though from your report, this one seems different. You already know the only attack which is sure to work."

"So someone out there's got a summoning contract with a damned demon pack!?" Daikoku asked.

"The old man!" a duty chunin with wide, flat black hair said, suddenly.

"Nah, he didn't have a scroll," Daikoku shot back.

"He wasn't really there, idiot!" Flat-black replied.

"What's this old man?" Suzaku asked, frowning at Tsuzumi.

"The day prior to yesterday, we encountered an old man sitting by the road," Yajirobee began to explain, even as Tsuzumi fidgeted uncomfortably. "Tsuzumi-san engaged him in conversation, but on closer inspection, the man appeared to be nothing more than a straw-dummy. It was suspicious, but nothing threatening happened, and the captain decided to proceed."

"That's... that would have been relevant information, Tsuzumi!" Suzaku said, closing his eyes and rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"Ah-ha, sorry, Suzaku-san, ah-ha," Tsuzumi said, laughing awkwardly, but offering no real excuse.

"No, no. It's no trouble," Suzaku said finally, releasing the grip on the bridge of his nose and opening his eyes. "What did you talk about?"

Tsuzumi relayed the conversation he'd had with the straw figure in full, adding a commentary of his own interpretations, and what he sensed from the man and the surroundings. He even included details that Ami had missed when she'd witnessed the conversation, such as the eight-spoke wheel symbol Tsuzumi had seen sewn into the dummy's robe above the heart. Suzaku listened to the entire report, patiently and intently.

"I agree with your former captain's decision. That situation wasn't alarming enough to risk the mission. It's only with hindsight that it seems dangerous," Suzaku said when Tsuzumi had finished. He looked around, seeming to come to a decision. "We're closer to Numa-Ku than Konoha. It will be better to take respite in the town, even if that is the home of our opponent. Have the civilians prepare to leave. Once we've secured ourselves in town, we'll request new orders from Konoha."

"Do you think we're facing a missing-nin?" Yajirobee asked as the Nara walked with him towards the crowd of civilians.

"Hm. Numa-Ku doesn't have any shinobi of its own, and a foreign nin would be insane to take a mission just a few hours from Konoha, so that seems like the best explanation," Suzaku muttered, almost to himself. "But this technique is strange. Almost any purpose would have been served better with traditional ninjutsu, by setting a trap, or by infiltration. It may be Konoha has seen its first wild doki. But then why here, so close to a city?"

Suzaku's questions had no easy answers.

It took almost an hour to pack up the camp and calm the beasts enough for them to be hitched to the carts. The captain's body was sealed into the large scroll which Suzaku carried, in which Ami took a silent, disquieted interest, and when the wheels finally started rolling, everyone was keen to move on.

As they caravan drew closer to Numa-Ku, the road began to improve in quality, even as the surrounding terrain fell away into deeper and more interconnected pools, dominated by lily pads, algae, and lotus flowers. The sound of frogs and insects became ubiquitous, a bizarre dawn chorus of croaks and chirps, different to Konoha's morning birdsong, but surprisingly beautiful in its own way.

The increasingly well-kept road wove through the wetlands like the spine ridge of an enormous creature, and there was almost no work left for the labour team to do, which given their state of exhaustion was just as well. The tragedy in the night had left the entire party tense and subdued.

After an hour of travel they began to pass farms, of a sort. Meandering lines of thick wooden stakes hammered into the ground where water pooled, describing watery enclosures in which fish could be seen swimming thickly, snapping at occasional flies and fallen leaves. There were rice farms as well; areas where the trees had been felled for dozens of meters around, the water dredged, and tall rice grass planted. Ami saw eel traps lurking in the surrounding water, half covered in algae.

Eventually the daylight, and the occasional sightings of local farm workers began to hedge out the nightmare of the previous night's events, and Ami turned to Tsuzumi with a question.

"Um. Sensei, what was a doki?" she asked, keeping her voice low. The labour teams and merchants were all ahead of the caravan, unlikely to hear her over the noise of the carts and animals, but she didn't want to take her first B-rank secret lightly.

"Hm. It's like Suzaku-san said. They're summons used by certain people," Tsuzumi said, matching the level of his voice with hers.

"But what're summons anyway?"

Tsuzumi thought for a moment before replying. "Sometimes ninja sign contracts with animal clans, and the clans allow them to summon their members for help."

"Oh. Do you have a summon?" she asked.

"Ah-ha, no. They're quite rare. Sometimes there are personal summons, but... ah- I don't know about how that works."

"Can people be summons?" Ami asked.

"Ah-ha, I think sometimes. There was one-"

"Your student asks vexing questions," Suzaku interrupted, revealing that he'd overheard the entire exchange.

"Ah-ha, she has a searching mind, my cute student," Tsuzumi said.

Suzaku seemed stern and unimpressed. "Remember that in our world, not every innocent question has an innocent answer, and we are not free to give them out just because someone is curious."

Tsuzumi didn't seem to know how to respond, just looking back at Suzaku uncertainly.

"This is why they use jonin. You career chunin swap jutsu and knowledge like trading cards, and never mind what's classified," Suzaku muttered. "Learn to give those secrets you overhear proper weight. Just because nobody instructed you to keep something to yourself, doesn't mean there's no penalty for sharing it."

Tsuzumi paled and turned away, but Ami rounded on the jonin.

"Why can't my sensei teach me!" she said, more a challenge than a question. Tsuzumi caught her shoulder, and tried to whisper for her to keep quiet, but he was interrupted again.

"No, it's no trouble. The answer is also a question," Suzaku said, stopping to look down at Ami with wide eyes. "How many secrets can you keep while being tortured, Ami-chan?"

Ami pressed her lips together in a shocked frown and kept silent.

"Hm. When you know the number, that will be the number of secrets you're allowed to know. Jutsu, knowledge about techniques, and enemies, and geography, and history. All of these can be valuable secrets to Konoha. The information we teach to our genin must be in line with their skills, and their discretion."

Suzaku resumed walking, letting the little girl fall behind him.

Half an hour later, they'd reached what passed for the gates of Numa-Ku.


	8. Mission to Swamp Ward 2-4

Numa-Ku, Swamp Ward Village, lived up to its name. The town wasn't so much situated in the middle of a swamp, as much it was submersed in it. Wooden pylons jutted out from the waist-deep water, holding up wooden walkways, houses, shops, and halls. The town stretched upwards more than it did outwards, with almost a third of the buildings being made up of small tree-houses, hanging precariously from, and sometimes between the narrow trees that rose from the still water below. Connecting them were vines and rope bridges, occasionally sloping down to provide access from the pontoons which formed the city's roads.

Compared to the cheerful, eclectic architecture of Konoha it seemed like a warm, humid, dreary place, but it was packed with concentrated life. There was no square foot that wasn't occupied by living matter. Tiny beetles, ubiquitous and inoffensive, fought for space with small shelled creatures clinging to the wood. Together with hanging vines and blankets of algae, they made the entire town thick with green, and brown, and crawling black. To a girl who'd never been outside of her village, it might as well have been another world.

The architecture was in-ornate and traditional. Functional beams supported wooden panels, reed shutters closed on windows filled with hanging mats made of what looked like layered spider-webs, and what weak sunlight filtered through the foliage and elevated buildings was augmented in places by lanterns hanging from carved wooden poles. One of the larger tree-houses was particularly well illuminated - a narrow three-storey building built in a nest between four diverging trees. An ornately carved sign to the side of its ascending rope-bridge entrance declared it to be an inn.

"This was where we were to meet our local contact," Yajirobee said to Suzaku as the duty-nin squad left the caravan to approach the building.

"This place doesn't look like it can stable large animals," Suzaku said, looking sceptically at the cramped building, held entirely aloft by a mesh of sturdy-looking beams.

"We've arranged placement for the animals at a farm a few minutes behind us, and that warehouse belongs to our contact. That's where the traders intend to store their cargo," Yajirobee said, pointing to a nearby building standing out of the water on wooden supports.

"Gather the other guards and arrange a watch, two on the animals at any time. Make sure there's someone with fire release on each pair," Suzaku said.

Yajirobee looked uncomfortable. "Nara-san... my ninjutsu squad was due to return immediately to Konoha. We're needed for another mission."

Suzaku closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "No, it's no problem. Can you spare at least one?"

"Nara-san, I can use fire release," Tsuzumi spoke up. "If it's a matter of having someone in town, that person can be me."

"How would that be, Nara-san?" Yajirobee said.

"Fine. And please deliver this into the hands of the hokage. I'd rather trust you than a messenger hawk," Suzaku said, passing a thin scroll into Yajirobee's hands.

The traders seemed content to trust the labour team with carrying the numerous crates and barrels from the carts still parked on the road into the town, and were themselves making their way towards the inn. They shouldered their way past the group of gathered chunin as they clambered up the knotted ropes, apparently deeming the place civilised enough to take some comfort in after their perilous time in the country.

Yajirobee walked away to explain the situation to the rest of the guards, and soon after could be seen gathering to leave with the ninjutsu team, making what were obviously reluctant farewells with the three duty chunin who would be staying. Moments later and the ninjutsu team were sprinting towards Konoha, Yajirobee in the lead, followed by Saisu and Iwana, and with the stout earth-specialist Daikoku taking up the rear.

"Bye, cool-sensei," Ami muttered sadly to herself. Feeling somehow more vulnerable without the presence of the large man.

The remaining ninja gathered, by then consisting of only Tsuzumi, Okei, and the chunin with broad, spiky hair that Ami hadn't caught the name of, and they followed Suzaku up into the inn.

"By the original parameters of the mission, this is where you were to meet your contact, Coda Chie, secretary to the chicho of Numa-Ku," Suzaku said, pushing the wooden door open, and stepping inside.

The occupants of the cramped space were few. The traders from the caravan had colonised one table, and were already eating from steaming bowls. The only other patron was a scarred man in a padded shirt, pouring a glass from a pitcher of green liquid. A short-handled glaive with a curved blade leaned against the wall behind him, suggesting he was some kind of guard or mercenary. The room was filled with rich smells of hot food, and an underlying sweet, cloying aroma that Ami couldn't place.

Suzaku approached the counter, bringing the rest of the group in tow, and a woman behind the counter folded her hands primly at her waist as she turned to address him.

"Welcome to the Steadfast Inn, please while you are here make yourself at home." The woman bowed politely. She spoke with heavy breaths and in a flat tone, as if speaking to the strangers was a great effort. Ami thought that the woman could be considered quite beautiful, with pale skin, and lips so red they could only be painted.

"Thank you, it seems very cosy," Suzaku said, taking a small stack of ryo notes and placing them on the counter. "There are five of us, and we'll be staying for at least tonight. After that? Who knows. Do you have rooms which we could rent?"

"Apologies... but the gentlemen who came before have taken many rooms," the woman said hesitantly, gesturing at the group of traders. "I only have two rooms remaining."

Suzaku pinched the bridge of his nose. "Ah, it's no trouble. We'll take them."

"I'll have some extra futons arranged," the woman said, slowly counting out several notes from the pile.

"And some breakfast?" Suzaku added.

The woman peered past the Nara to look at the group of shinobi behind him, and nodded. "Four breakfast, and one child breakfast."

Ami raised her hand, the queasiness in her stomach having transformed into biting hunger at some point during the walk into town. "Adult breakfast, please."

The woman smiled tiredly, and her head rolled slightly to the side to look at the small girl. "The local spices are not to the taste of children, but I'll make sure you get a normal sized bowl."

"Ah- non-spicy for me as well, and spare the salt," Tsuzumi said, raising his hand, then whispering to Ami, "Inn food is always over-seasoned. It doesn't do for refined palates."

Ami nodded in agreement, though she'd never tasted 'inn food' in her life, and it was questionable how refined her palate was.

The woman collected another pair of bills, and moved back through an open door into the rear of the building to speak with someone out of sight. The group took seats around a large table, and waited for the food to arrive.

"That man with the glaive has got some chakra levels, about level with the girl," the chunin with wide, black hair said suddenly, leaning forward with his head on his hands to disguise the whisper as he flicked his eyes at Ami.

Suzaku adopted a similarly casual pose, setting his elbow on the table and resting his chin in his hand. "Oh, you're a sensor-type? What got you put on the duty rotation?"

"I'm not great at it, I'm limited to a few feet," Flat-black replied.

Suzaku thought for a moment, then shook his head. "It would take more than genin-level chakra reserves to pull off what happened last night."

"The girl's more like low chunin," Flat-black shot back casually.

Ami's eyes widened imperceptibly. She forced herself to remain perfectly still, but inside she was raising her hands in victory.

"Still, it would be a little bold to sit there drinking punch if he'd attacked you," Suzaku mused, half a smile playing across his lips. He became serious, as if a thought had come to him. "Still, there are no commonalities among users of doki, he may be dangerous. Stay on your guard."

Ami got up from the table wordlessly.

"Say, Nara-san, what's the plan for the rest of the trip?" the flat-black haired chunin asked. "Is it a wash out? The caravan's here safe so we passed, but the route isn't safe, so we failed. Which is it?"

"Right now we're waiting for orders from Konoha, they'll decide whether to abandon the trade project, or try and resolve the threat-"

"Hey Spear-san! Pretty cool spear there," Ami said to the scarred man from where she stood next to his table, her voice carrying over Suzaku's quiet explanation despite the distance.

"Ami!" Tsuzumi hissed. His face was an odd mix of fear and anger, as if someone had just set fire to his hair. He began to stand, "What is she doing!-"

Suzaku caught Tsuzumi's arm, and pulled him back down into his chair. "She's gathering information," the Nara said with a grim smile. "Innocent questions, remember?"

The stranger's eyes darted to the weapon leaning against the wall beside him, then back to Ami. "It's not a spear. It's a naginata, the exquisite weapon of a warrior." His voice was soft, even gentle, and slightly sad.

"Huh, I'm a warrior too," Ami said, with some pride.

The stranger looked the girl up and down, his eyes coming to rest on her headband. "You're a shinobi."

"Yeah, so I'm better than a warrior, since I can use chakra," Ami said, half sitting on a stool on the opposite side of the table to the man.

He took a long drink of the juice. "I find that is a typical shinobi attitude."

"I guess the high ups can be kind of snobs," Ami conceded, remembering the attitudes of several of her classmates. "All they care 'bout's clans, and kekkei genkai - that's special bloodline limits-"

"I know what bloodlines are."

The woman from the counter began carrying bowls of steaming rice porridge out to the table. Most of the bowls were seasoned with ginger and a fine red spice, while two of them were flecked sparsely with nuts and cinnamon.

"Oh, gotta go," Ami said, bouncing back to the table, and resuming her seat. She received a glare from Tsuzumi, and a slightly sinister smile from Suzaku, but they soon all began eating, and her digression was forgotten.

"It sounds like he's some kind of warrior? Isn't the naginata a samurai weapon?" Flat-black asked.

"Hm. He's probably a ronin. He doesn't seem to care for shinobi, but he didn't seem threatened either," Suzaku concluded. "I don't think he'd be capable of that level of summoning."

"But if he's a ronin, that suggests he has an employer. May be someone who would also hire a missing-nin," Tsuzumi said, tapping his finger on the table.

"It's no trouble, but it may not be our job to solve this puzzle," Suzaku said. "It's possible the hokage will send a dedicated investigation team when he hears of the attack."

The group spent the morning talking and planning, there were even half-hearted attempts at jokes, poorly received, and quickly forgotten. The inn remained mostly empty throughout, though towards midday a pair of fishermen arrived with a brace of large, brown fish, and received a meal in return. Ami noticed that the fishermen had the same strangely red lips as the woman at the counter, and wondered if it was a local fashion in the town. The mercenary didn't leave when he'd finished his pitcher, he just ordered another, and then another. After some time he took out a dark brown book, and spent the rest of the morning absorbed in it.

Ami passed the time staring out through the empty windows at the city, and she began to realise that 'city' was hardly an appropriate name. The town seemed no larger than Konoha's commercial district, and most of the buildings were much smaller than the Hidden Leaf's. Where Konoha supported a population of tens of thousands, Ami couldn't imagine more than a few thousand people living in the cramped buildings so far out in the swamp, and even after it had passed the time she thought businesses would start to open, she saw hardly anyone walking the wooden pontoon streets below - the only exception being the children, a hungry narrowness to their features, clothed in rags, and wandering aimlessly around the wooden platforms.

Since the initial awe that came with the first sight of a strange place had passed, Ami began to notice the signs of disrepair scattered around the town. The reed shutters that framed the windows had been torn, or torn off in places and not repaired, and many of the lanterns which sat on top of the wooden poles were damaged beyond use. Much of the omnipresent life that had so impressed Ami on the journey into the town was itself a sign of disrepair and abandonment. The slick algae which covered the wooden platforms wasn't an unavoidable factor of life in the swamp after all, but more likely a consequence of improper maintenance. The small shells which clung to the wooden poles in their thousands would lead to damage if they weren't scraped away. It was as if the town had simply given up looking after itself.

The chicho's secretary, for all of the disrepair evident in the town, turned out to be impeccably dressed. She wore a kimono of dark red silk, with her hair held in a bun by a pair of silver hair pins. The secretary didn't wear the make-up that seemed popular with the other residents, and her chestnut brown skin and pale pink lips were natural and unstained. Despite the lack of opportunities for diplomacy in an isolated, neglected backwater town like Numa-Ku, the woman's manners were also flawless, and she executed a perfect bow as she introduced herself. The only off-putting thing around her appearance was her left eye, which seemed to point off in a direction all of its own, but Ami decided that it didn't spoil her appearance too much after all.

"Greetings, ninja-sama. I am Coda Chie, secretary to the chicho."

"Nara Suzaku, and these are my subordinates," the dark haired jonin introduced himself, and gestured at the other chunin.

"It's my honour to welcome you to Numa-Ku, I hope your trip was comfortable. It is a long way to Konoha by the old land-road."

"Ah, it was no trouble, Coda-san. Eighty miles passed like eight," Suzaku said gracefully, though Tsuzumi and Okei exchanged glances. For the guards who'd been forced to travel at the slow civilian pace of the caravan all the way from Konoha, the journey had been somewhat less comfortable, to say nothing of the previous night. "So far we've found your city welcoming and hospitable."

"Ah, that is kind, considering the problems, but shall we sit? Our discussion will happen more smoothly over refreshments."

Suzaku nodded, and moved to a table some distance from that of the other chunin. Coda caught the attention of the woman at the counter, and ordered a pitcher of the same punch the mercenary was favouring. "The honey locust trees produce a sweet bean pod, which makes an excellent beverage."

Ami looked on longingly at the fruit juice. She took a long draw from her water glass and focused on eavesdropping on the conversation.

Suzaku sipped politely to mirror the secretary. "You mentioned Numa-Ku has been having problems. Is it anything I need to be concerned with regarding the trade agreement?"

The woman shook her hand urgently. "Oh no, I should hope not. But over the last several years, the peasants have grown lazy and slothful. They sleep too long, and work too little. It is embarrassing, but you have seen the results for yourself."

"The state of the village? Hm," Suzaku said, nodding slightly. "It's no trouble, it's charming in a way."

The woman made a tsk-ing sound. "It's slothful degradation. The chicho has tried everything to try and motivate the dotard. Higher salaries, greater punishments, more emphasis on religion, and nothing has helped. People stop going to work, stop paying taxes, and do the least they must to survive!"

"That would be a problem. Do you know what the cause might be?" Suzaku asked, taking another sip.

"It is hopelessness," the woman sighed sadly. "Years ago when the Shinobi Wars broke out, coastal trade was hurt very badly. At the time we relied on riding the river to the sea road, where we sold our delicacies up and down the coast of Fire, and even to Water and Noodle country, but that wasn't something that could continue under the animosity of the Village Hidden in the Mist."

"But it's been years since the end of the third war," Suzaku said.

"Ah, true, but the seed of despair was planted in those dark days. The bottoms of our boats were cracked, our farmers and silk breeders had left. The people of Fire grew tastes for new, exotic goods. But- this is why we are here. Trade with Konoha, and through her roads the rest of Fire, that will bring new hope to Numa-Ku."

"It sounds like trade can't begin soon enough as far as you're concerned," Suzaku said.

"Ah, no," Coda laughed, smiling. "As soon as possible."

"But is everyone here as eager for trade to begin?" Suzaku asked, his expression carefully controlled.

"Of course! Who wouldn't want new life in this sad, lazy town," Coda seemed genuinely shocked.

"Perhaps someone has a local monopoly, which trade would disrupt? Or are there local criminals who would object to the flow of ryo falling out of their hands?"

"O-of course we have local monopolies. We have been our own only customer for more than ten years, but it's not like you're suggesting. We have almost no crime in Numa-Ku. The chicho says that even the criminals are lazy."

"No crime? Hm," Suzaku mused, draining his glass and pouring another.

"Almost, the most we have to deal with are mischievous children. They're always the first ones to suffer when people become poor," Coda added sadly.

"I wish we knew your secret in Konoha. Even the vigilance of shinobi doesn't seem enough to keep criminals suppressed," Suzaku said.

Coda lay a hand gently on Suzaku's sleeve. "Ah Nara-san, a little crime is an insignificant price to pay for a population with vitality. I mourn for the Numa-Ku of my youth."

"Your youth? You barely look out of your twenties, Coda-chan," Suzaku said with a smile.

The woman gently swatted Suzaku's hand.

Tsuzumi turned away from the pair of them and rolled his eyes at Ami, who forced a smirk and rolled her eyes in return.

"Will you be staying in town long, Nara-san?" Coda asked after a moment of silence.

"We might be, it's not yet certain," he replied. "We're here at least for tonight."

"Oh, then perhaps you would all like to join me at the Chicho's house tonight. We're having a small party to celebrate the arrival of the first caravan."

"I'd be honoured, Coda-san," Suzaku said, smiling.

Suzaku and the woman made their goodbyes, and Ami turned to the three chunin around the table.

"So suspicious," Ami muttered, barely audible.

"Huh, what's that, Ami-chan?" Tsuzumi asked.

"That woman, she's so suspicious!" Ami said, waving helplessly at inn's door.

"How do you work that out?" Okei asked.

"She's so clean, and pretty, and everyone else is filthy," Ami said with confidence.

The chunin with wide black hair chuckled mirthlessly. "It's called having money, kid."

Ami scowled at him. "What's your name anyway?"

Flat-black blinked. "Hayase."

"Okay then." Ami swayed slightly, and reached up to rub her eyes. "I think I better sleep before the party."

"After one night without sleep? How pampered are genin these days?" Hayase said, the jibe falling on deaf ears as Ami yawned.

"You're not going to the party," Suzaku said sternly, resuming his seat at the table.

"Whaaat?" Ami asked through a yawn, but there was no fire in her indignation.

"If there's anyone in the city with money enough to hire a missing-nin, they'll likely be embedded in its upper class. They may even be using the nukenin as a body guard. I'll take Hayase to try and identify targets, and Okei as backup. Tsuzumi, you'll stay here with your student and wait for the messenger," Suzaku seemed suddenly troubled. "I expected one to return by now. It's nearly noon, and at a sprint the journey doesn't take that long."

In the table behind them, the mercenary finally finished what turned out to be his final pitcher of punch, pushed his chair back from the table, and walked from the inn with his naginata in hand. The conversation between the chunin died down as he walked past, only to resume once he was out of ear-shot.

"Hm, I better go to the party," Tsuzumi said, weaving his hands together thoughtfully. "My ability to decode body language may be useful. Meanwhile, Ami-chan can wait for the messenger."

"You have that ability?" Suzaku asked, eyeing the chunin sceptically.

Tsuzumi nodded, his eyes turning towards Ami. "For example, my cute student is angry."

Ami was indeed angry, and the scowl on her face needed no subtlety in the art of reading body language to decipher.

"You can't leave the kid alone," Okei said. "This is just like you, Tsu!"

"Eh. It's fine, it's fine," Tsuzumi said, wafting a hand. "My genin student is a capable kunoichi."

Ami's scowl relaxed into an approving grimace, she gave a slow nod. The nod deepened, and then her head snapped back up, her eyes open wide. "Wait, what if the monster comes back?"

"It's fine, it's too big to fit in the rooms," Tsuzumi said with a smile.

Ami pondered that for a moment.

"She should probably go to bed right now," Okei sighed. "She's falling asleep in her chair."

Ami was led up to one of the rooms, a small space with two futons at opposite sides of the floor. One door led to a wash room, with a lavatory and a tub full of water, with soap and oil nearby. The water in the tub wasn't warm, but with the local climate, water left to stand in the air could never be called cold, and after Tsuzumi left her alone Ami bathed and put herself to bed.

The sun had set by the time Ami woke, from a nightmare about black hair and grasping hands. There was no sign of any of the other chunin in the room, though there were a pair of bright white eyes watching her from the darkness.


	9. Mission to Swamp Ward 2-5

Ami didn't scream. In the dark, the staring eyes were only visible in the faint yellow lantern light filtering through the mosquito mat hanging in the open window. With Ami laying in the shadows of the floor, it was possible those eyes hadn't even seen her wake. She slitted her eyes, shifting as if she were still sleep, and used the motion to slip her hand beneath the edge of the futon and grasped the senbon hidden there.

The thought occurred to her that the eyes might belong to Suzaku or one of the chunin, making a particularly creepy entrance after returning from the chicho's party. She lay still until her eyes were no longer blurred from sleep, several seconds during which the sinister eyes roamed to the other futon. When Ami could finally see the faint outline of a tall, slim man wearing thin clothes in contrast to the bulky flak-jackets of the shinobi, she knew there was a stranger in the room.

Ami took a deep breath and leapt up unto a crouch, tearing the window-mat down, brandishing a fistful of senbon as pale yellow light streamed in from the lantern hanging outside. The light revealed a tall, bald man, with a kind, round face, wearing a dark red robe with a maroon sash. In one arm he carried a bundle of small urns, and there were lengths of paper hanging from his sash as it wound diagonally down his body, each covered in thin calligraphy. The general appearance was that of a monk, and Ami relaxed slightly.

"I thought the other would be here," the man said in a soft, high pitched voice. Ami thought he sounded almost guilty.

"Who are you?" Ami challenged, her fist clenching around her senbon.

"There are those who foolishly call me Koka," he said as he placed one of the urns on the ground, between Ami and the door. "But we're sadly late for introductions,"

"Koka? You're the dummy!" Ami said, realisation dawning. The man's name, and his voice she realised, had been those of the straw dummy two days earlier.

"Oh? I hope I'm not a dummy," Koka said.

"You're the one who killed Captain." Ami scowled and almost threw her projectiles at him there and then, but hesitated, stayed by a combination of doubt, and never having tried to kill anyone before.

"And you came anyway! I didn't want to hurt anyone, but what I'm doing here, it's important. It's monumental!" Koka started to become animated, clenching his free hand. "A world without suffering. An escape from this unsatisfactory existence. I can give people this, but not- not if it's disrupted. And for what? For the sake of simple greed, the most pernicious trap of this inexcusable world."

"I-it's just a trade. It'll... it'll bring life in," Ami muttered, remembering the words overheard from the secretary earlier that day, as she inched towards the window.

"It will distract my people from their blissful state. Have you known suffering, little one? Ah, no. I can see that you haven't yet seen the true horror of this world, whose time passes like needles on the skin. I can see there is still light in your eyes."

"Uh, thanks, creepy-san," Ami said, casting her eyes around the clothes scattered around her bed for her equipment pouch. She spotted it, lying on top of her sweat-stained grey pants.

"You would have learned. You would have learned the inadequacy of this world, had you lived long enough. I am truly sorry, but there are so many depending on me." Koka bent down and placed another of the urns on the ground, beside the first. "Though- all of this for a young girl seems decadent. It may comfort you to know your death will be unduly expensive."

Ami's heart's started to beat faster, and she began plotting a route to the window. With the threat evident, if ambiguous, she no longer felt the need to hold back. Ami flicked her hand towards the Koka, and the senbon flew straight at his face. Two thudded into the half-closed door behind him, but she saw the third protruding from the man's palm, swept up at the last moment to block the senbon inches from his eye.

"Pain is found on the road to dissatisfaction, a path I no longer walk," the man said, idly pulling the senbon from his hand and dropping to the floor. Moving without warning, he raised a foot and smashed it down on the first urn.

In place of the urn, a humanoid figure faded into view. Pale, with long brown hair, and bright red lips. The figure looked essentially human, a little shorter than an adult, and was wearing ragged clothes which wouldn't have looked out of place on the local people. Despite it's superficial similarity to a person, it clearly wasn't human. The creature's grin was feral, insane, and a long red tongue rolled out of the crimson mouth to slap wetly against its chin.

Ami tumbled towards the window in a perfectly executed cartwheel, grabbed her equipment pouch as a her movement brought her hands to the ground, and landed crouching at the foot of the window. As she moved, the man behind her whipped the second urn up in a kick, and sent it flying at the wooden window frame, where it smashed into dozens of clay fragments. Ami shielded her eyes, and when she lowered her arm, saw that another of the figures was crouching in the window.

"I'm sorry child, there is no escape. Now, as at all times, the path of least suffering is blissful surrender."

Ami launched her fist at the figure crouching in the windowsill. After the attack of the intangible creature on the road, she was surprised when her punch met the solid skin of its face. It gulped in surprise, as if swallowing a hiccup, and Ami followed the strike up with a sharp jab to its neck.

One of the creature's yellow-clawed hands went to its throat, and the other swept at Ami, digging deep scratches across the skin above her shoulder blade. Ignoring the pain, Ami leapt up to grip the top of the window frame and slammed her feet into the creature's chest. Her swinging kick knocked it clear out of the window to fall to the ground below. Ami heard the sound of the third urn smashing behind her, spotted a rope bridge several feet from the window, and leapt for it.

She paused on the rope bridge to strap on her belt pouch, and another of the grinning figures appeared at the window. Thirty feet below, the creature she'd knocked from the window scrabbled to its feet on the board-walk, and began climbing one of the trees the inn used for support, it's yellow claws giving it purchase on the tough wood.

Ami tossed a kunai at the creature in the window, but the blade went wide, passing by it harmlessly and sinking into the room's far wall instead.

With a grunt of frustration she turned from the creature and sprinted up the rope bridge, towards a small platform twenty feet above her. Ami briefly hoped that the the creature wouldn't be able to make the jump from the window to the bridge, but she turned back in time to see it land on the rope bridge with the grace of a cat, and came scuttling after her.

At the top of the rope bridge, the wooden platform opened out, forming a small landing. Four wooden houses opened onto it, suspended from a thicket of tall trees, and Ami saw the high ground as a chance to ambush one of her pursuers. She drew a kunai, and crouched to wait for what she knew would only be a matter of seconds.

The pale head of the creature appeared above the floor of the landing. Ami jumped forwards and slammed a kunai into its temple before it could react to her presence. Not waiting to see the result of her attack, Ami pulled the kunai free and turned, darting to the back of the landing. There were no more bridges leading away from the platform, so Ami leapt for one of the hanging vines. The vine dropped sickeningly for several feet, coming untangled from a branch above before stabilising, and Ami scrambled upwards.

The only solid ground accessible from the vine turned out to be a wooden platform adjoining an old house, suspended between a trio of trees. The building was half ruined and obviously abandoned, the rope bridge which once connected it to the rest of the town long severed and dangling uselessly from the small platform. Ami cut the vine with the kunai, letting herself fall to the platform, and looked down to check the progress of her pursuers.

The creature she'd kicked to the town's ground level was making up for her head start, and was already climbing up the rope bridge behind the inn. The one she'd nailed with the kunai was lying motionlessly on the first platform, and the third she'd so far only heard was slowly picking its way up one of her platform's support trees.

Ami drew a bundled handful of senbon from her pouch and began flicking them at the closest creature. The creature was fully exposed to attack as it climbed the tree below her, and Ami managed to nail it in the shoulder, which seemed to seriously inconvenience its ability to climb. With a stationary target, she began to pincushion the creature with more of the needles, in the abdomen, the shoulders, and the spine. A senbon which sank into the soft spot on the back of its head seemed to be the final strike, and it fell limply to the ground below, exuding a faint red mist as it sank into the swamp below.

The final creature had continued climbing while Ami had been focused on its companion, and was almost at the platform. Ami drew a kunai which once again bore its paper 'victory' tag, and took a fighting stance. The creature scrabbled up over the edge, spider-like, and leapt at Ami.

Ami dodged the leap, and the two traded blows for several seconds. The creature was slower than her, Ami realised as the fight went on, but its erratic movements and long, lunging arms made it hard for her to land a telling blow. Her arms were starting to ache with blocking its strikes when she saw her opening, and swung the kunai in a wide arc across the creature's neck.

The monster's hands clutched at its throat, spurting hot red fluid onto Ami's face and hair. A drop landed on her lip, and she tasted searing sweetness. Ami crouched, spitting and retching as the creature fell limply to the ground. Not blood, the creature had bled a spicy, sweet fluid, which began quickly evaporating into thin red mist, the stains on Ami's skin and hair dissipating into the air even as she wiped at them.

Moments after she recovered from her nausea, she saw a man calmly walking up the side of the same tree that the creature had scaled. In the dim light far above the lanterns, Ami recognised the old man from her room.

"They make effective killing machines in Konoha," the man said as he stepped off onto the platform. "Tonight was such a failure. And now you force me to risk everything in a low duel."

"Why are you doing this!" Ami said between laboured breaths. "Those are monsters! Do you- do you make them or what?"

"I don't need to make monsters, the world is full enough of them already," Koka said sadly. "Outside this place, my peaceful refuge, they rule the land. You have been made a monster yourself, though you can not see it." He spun around as he finished speaking, delivering a swirling kick that caught Ami in the head before she'd even registered it. The strike sent her flying backwards into the wall of the ruined house.

Ami crashed into the wall, denting planks as she hit, and slipped to a crouch, half leaning against the wall. She was dazed, but she remembered her academy lessons, and pulsed her chakra, pumping fresh strength into her body, suppressing the pain. She staggered to her feet.

"Lay down your burdens, little one. The life ahead of you is full of pain and regret. This world will never allow satisfaction. Only the blissful release of surrender will allow you any peace."

"O-okay. I surrender," Ami said, weakly.

Koka looked at her intently for a moment. "No, there is a lie in your eyes."

Koka moved in another lightning-fast kick, but Ami had been expecting it. She brought up a kunai to block a strike to her head, and watched as the man's rising kick impaled the top of his foot on the tip of her blade. Koka repositioned and used the same foot to send a light kick towards her neck, which Ami blocked as well. She brought her kunai down to try and hamstring the leg, but Koka pulled it out of her reach as quickly as he'd struck.

Koka sighed and moved in to attack in earnest. Ami found herself defending against a ceaseless barrage of jabs, kicks and palm strikes, and was managing to block less than a third of them. Her victory kunai was spent spinning from her hands, and a back-handed strike sent her dazed to the ground.

Ami saw the monk lift his leg, preparing to bring it down on her head. She reached out and slapped lightly on the ankle supporting his weight. When she pulled her hand away, a paper tag was stuck there, hissing quietly. She took advantage of his momentary confusion to roll away, and jumped blindly from the edge of the platform.

Behind her, Ami heard an explosion. Moments later, a wave of hot air and wooden splinters assaulted her back. Her flight brought her with arm's reach of a tree, and she lashed a hand out, forming chakra on her fingertips to grip the wood. Her momentum carried her around the tree in a gliding spiral, and she scraped around it twice before she could stick her feet to it.

Ami risked a glance back up to the ruined house. The platform she'd been fighting on was mostly destroyed, and there was no sign of Koka, but no sign of his body either. The creature she'd brought down with senbon had disappeared from the board-walk where it'd fallen, and Ami felt a knot in her stomach about returning to the inn. Instead, she ran up the tree until she could jump to a neighbouring building, and began to lose herself in the sprawl of Numa-Ku.

Ami spent a miserable four hours hiding in the branches of a swamp tree. She deemed the room at the inn to be compromised, and didn't dare return there despite her apparent victory at the derelict house. At the same time, she needed to stay nearby and alert, watching for the return of the guard team before they could walk blindly into a potential trap.

She found a place, a hundred meters from the site of her battle, nestled in the branches of one of the tall trees. There were houses on every side of her, but there was a small gap which gave a view of the rope bridge leading to the inn's entrance. Ami could hear the sounds of life coming from inside of the nearby houses, just the ordinary movements of people at home. Creaking floorboards, banging cupboards. No voices could be heard, and not knowing the hour, Ami wondered if most of the village might be in bed. The streets were certainly deserted.

She eventually saw a group of three figures in familiar green flak jackets gather at the bottom of the rope bridge and start to climb it. She needed to be swift.

She jumped from her hiding spot onto the sloping wooden roof of a house below, sprinted across it, and leapt, catching her foot on the wall of another house further down, sending chakra to her feet to stick there. She used the new angle to jump to a nearby tree, which she was able to slide down to the network of ground level pontoons, and sprinted for the inn.

Tsuzumi was just opening the inn's door, giving it a quiet, unnecessary knock when Ami barrelled into them.

"Wait!" she hissed.

"Ami? Ami! What happened?" Tsuzumi said, crouching to examine Ami's face and torn pyjamas. "Were you playing with shuriken?"

"I got attacked, sensei. The doki came after me, and there was a man in charge of them."

Tsuzumi looked alarmed. "Doki? Here? In the room?"

"They were small, like people, but more like monsters." Ami scowled suddenly, and jabbed her sensei in the stomach. "You shouldn't have left me!"

Behind them, Okei and Hayase were swaying. They both had dull looks on their faces, and were staring into space with glassy eyes, as if they were drunk.

"Uh! Ah-ha, sorry, you're right, you're right." He waved dismissively as he clutched at his stomach with the other hand. "Are they still in the room?"

"No, they chased me out and I killed them. Dummy-san chased me too. I blew him up, but he might have escaped."

"Uh, Dummy-san?" Tsuzumi asked, giving the surrounding darkness a quick inspection and rubbing a hand across his knotted forehead.

"The dummy from the road. He was a real guy, he's a monk."

"Okay, get behind me Ami, back me up," Tsuzumi said, drawing a kunai in his left hand and moving to push open the door.

"Sensei, what's with them?" Ami asked, pointing at the two swaying chunin behind them. "Are they drunk or something?"

"Ah-ha, they drank a little. I didn't think it was a good idea, but- They didn't have that much." Tsuzumi stepped back and gave Okei a light slap on the cheek. The man didn't respond. "Maybe they're extra tired."

Tsuzumi moved back to the door, and carefully crept inside. He checked the corners and behind the door, then behind the counter. Satisfied that the inn's main room was secure, he began moving up the stairs, keeping his feet to the edge of the steps where the wood didn't protest.

Ami followed Tsuzumi as they searched the entire inn. Not just the two rooms which the guard team had rented, but he intruded on the traders' rooms as well. They found the traders all peacefully asleep, some even in their day clothes where they'd passed out on their beds. It seemed like the sleepless night in the wilderness had badly affected them as well.

With the inn seemingly secure, Ami and Tsuzumi herded the dazed chunin into the adjacent room, and pushed them onto their futons fully clothed. The men didn't object, both seeming to fall deeply asleep as soon as they were down. Tsuzumi led Ami back into the other room. He inspected the room carefully, paying close attention to the pottery fragments.

"It looks like someone was definitely here. What did he look like?" Tsuzumi asked, sitting on the futon closest the door, as Ami crossed her legs on the other.

"Bald monk," Ami said. "He looked friendly, but he wasn't."

"Is this where I teach you how to give a good description?" Tsuzumi groaned.

"Oh wait." Ami moved her hand through the Dog, Boar, Ram seals. "Henge!"

A cloud of smoke erupted around where Ami had been sitting, and when it cleared, she'd been replaced by a tall, slim man in his late forties. He wore a dark red robe with a maroon sash, which had a series of paper seals hanging from it. The lettering on the paper was more of a blurry mess of abstract scribbles than anything which could be called writing, evidence of Ami's less than perfect memory.

"And he spoke like this," Ami said in a gentle, high pitched voice, then dispelled the technique in a cloud of smoke.

Tsuzumi was scratching his chin. "Coda-san said that a local monk was expected to come to the party, but he didn't turn up. She didn't call him Koka, she said his name was Kotaro. I wonder if it's the same person. He's apparently a big deal in town, he has the trust of the chicho."

"He's a fraud! He tried to kill me," Ami said. "He said he was sorry, but then he made the doki. He even came after me himself."

"Hm, you said. Was he skilled in ninjutsu?" Tsuzumi asked.

"He beat me up pretty well," Ami said, tentatively poking the bruise on her cheek, wincing, then poking it again.

"Hm, skilled in taijutsu. Was he as good as me?"

"Don't be insecure, sensei," Ami grunted, digging in her pouch for the small paper packet of pain pills. She pushed one into her mouth and bit down with a grimace.

"I have to know in case we fight him," Tsuzumi said.

Ami paused to think for half a minute. "He was about as good as Sasuke."

"Is he a genin from the academy?"

"Yeah, but he's a prodigy! He could beat the sensei sometimes."

"Okay, let's say he's low chunin. Combined with his summoning jutsu, we'll probably need to go in force." Tsuzumi said.

"Uh, sensei, where's Nara-san?" Ami asked.

"Ah-ha. He said he wanted to check on something, and later left to escort Coda-chan home."

Ami set her mouth and blinked disapprovingly. "Sensei! Why am I the serious one! This is a mission, and you're getting drunk and getting with girls!"

"Ami! Don't be so quick to judge your sensei! I didn't drink a thing, and I'm clearly not getting with a girl."

"Because Inaho-neesan would kill you," Ami added.

"She would kill me in my sleep. She has told me so," Tsuzumi confirmed.

"But what's wrong with the others?" she asked, looking at the connecting door to the second room.

"Eh, I don't know. Duty chunin don't get out of the village much, they probably think it's a chance to cut loose."

Ami narrowed her eyes. "How did you do with your body language skills, eh?"

"My what?" Tsuzumi asked, seeming confused, before remembering. "Oh! It was very useful. I picked up so much body language, Ami-chan."

"Uhuh. You were cutting loose!"

"Yeah, yeah," he waved her off. "A little. It's fine,"

"I almost died!"

"You're a fine kunoichi, you didn't die," he said, lying down on the futon. "Now it's been thirty-five hours without sleep. I guess you had a nap, neko-chan, so you're on watch. Wake me at dawn."

Ami blushed, looking down at her torn cat pyjamas, and searched through her kit for antiseptic. After treating her shallow scrapes and changing into a fresh set of clothes, Ami didn't have much to do, and spent the time until morning staring tensely through the window, jumping at every creak in the cooling building.


	10. Mission to Swamp Ward 2-6

When dawn came, Nara Suzaku still hadn't returned. Ami had woken Tsuzumi easily, the sensei's eyes flickering open before she had even reached down to shake his shoulder. He'd moved to the wash room to clean up, and Ami had gone into the adjacent room to try and wake the other chunin.

Both men were still asleep, and Ami had to resort to slapping their faces before their eyes even opened. After waking they stared vacantly at the ceiling, not speaking or moving.

"Okei! Okei, wake up, you drunk!" Ami slapped the chunin again, though he was already awake. Deciding she would never get this opportunity again, Ami spent a good deal of time striking their faces, poking their noses, and physically lifting their eyelids. She finally got a response when she emptied a canteen of lukewarm water over Hayase's wide, spiky hair.

"Eh, leave me alone," the man groaned, pulling the blanket over his face.

Ami stripped the blanket away and pulled at the man's hair. "Wake up! There's a mission, it's dangerous!"

"What's the point. Let me rest."

Ami still hadn't managed to properly rouse them by the time Tsuzumi left the wash room.

"There's something wrong with them," she muttered, experimentally jabbing Okei with a senbon, and getting only a grunt of vague disapproval in response.

For once, Tsuzumi didn't look happy, and went through his own litany of slaps and yells. Growing desperate, he tried to feed Okei a soldier pill, but the man just chewed mechanically and showed no improvement. Tsuzumi swept out of the room, and returned a minute later with alarm in his eyes.

"This is bad, Ami. The traders are all the same."

"Is it a jutsu?" she asked.

"I don't know. This is bad, maybe some kind of poison. We have to find Nara-san."

"But we didn't turn lazy like them," Ami mused. "We must be immune."

"No, we ate differently to the rest. There may have been something in the food yesterday." Tsuzumi paced agitatedly as he spoke, worrying the knuckle of his thumb with his teeth. Ami had never seen her sensei so tense, he was usually the one diffusing the situation, but he'd transformed into a bundle of nerves.

"Come on, get your things. We'll try and track down Nara-san."

o o o

Ami had followed her sensei for half an hour of running across board-walks, up the sides of buildings, and jumps between trees, before they reached the elegant house at the address Coda had given him on their separation the previous night. The secretary's home was richly decorated, and had a clay tile roof rather than the simple wooden planks that covered the majority of the Numa-Ku's buildings. Standing on dozens of tall stilts, the building was more or less at ground level, eschewing the trees in favour of a stable platform driven deep into the marsh mud.

The woman opened the door after the second time Tsuzumi knocked. She was wearing a casual kimono, and her hair was in disarray, completely different from the meticulously refined image she'd offered the day before.

"Oh, Sarugaku-san? I didn't expect to see you so soon," she said to Tsuzumi, obviously uncomfortable at the intrusion.

"Ah, Coda-san, I'm here to ask about Suzaku. The last I saw of him, he was returning here with you?"

The woman's cheeks flushed, and she opened the door. "Please, come in."

She led them into a tidy living room, richly furnished with low couches at either side of a central table. She beckoned them to sit and rushed into the kitchen, returning moments later with a pitcher of green juice and several glasses. She joined them at the low table, pouring herself a drink.

"Nara-san did return here with me. He told me he wanted to speak to me in private, and naturally I thought..." the woman flushed again, and spared a glance at Ami. "Well, that wasn't his intention. He did just want to speak."

"What did you talk about?" Tsuzumi asked.

Ami reached for a glass of the juice, but Tsuzumi caught her eye and shook his head minutely, and she turned the motion into stretch.

"Oh, he had so many questions, about our city, our history. He asked about our social problems, our religion, our agriculture. It was almost an interrogation." The woman drank from her own glass, and her blush faded as she began to slip into her role as a hostess. "I'm sorry, have you eaten yet? Would you like some breakfast?"

"No, we're fine, thank you. When did he leave here, and do you know where he went?" Tsuzumi asked.

Ami silently thought that she would actually appreciate breakfast, but could see the logic in refusing.

"I'm not sure where he went. But... he seemed most interested in one of our farms, a site several miles away. I'm not sure if he headed that way, the only way to get there is by boat. He also showed interest in the temple, though if I'm honest, he doesn't strike me as the religious type."

"Where is the farm, and the temple?"

Coda gave Tsuzumi directions to both, and they left quickly after that. The farm Suzaku had seemed so interested in was several miles travel to the east, as many as three hours away even assuming both were running over water, which Ami hadn't even attempted yet. The temple was reportedly on the outskirts of town, one of the few buildings that rested on solid ground, built on the flattened surface of an enormous rock which had been drawn up from beneath the marsh during the second shinobi war.

"If he went to the temple, dummy-san could have trapped him," Ami muttered.

"If he even escaped the poison," Tsuzumi added, unhappily.

"What should we do sensei?"

"We have to check the temple. That's the most dangerous place. If Nara-san reached it, he'll need my help. We can scout it from outside. If he's not there, I'll have to visit their farm while you run back to Konoha for help."

"On my own?" Ami asked, startled.

"You're a shinobi, aren't you?"

o o o

The temple turned out to be actually more of a converted function hall, resting at a slight slope on top of a broken square of mossy stone. It was made up of a large central hall, and two stubby wings which abutted it to the left and right. The exterior was ornately carved, the walls dotted with square buttresses whose tops were chiselled into large frog faces. In places the remnants of painted enamel plates could be seen, hinting at elaborate decoration in the city's more prosperous past.

The pair had found a nearby rooftop from which they could see the front of the temple, but Tsuzumi's attempts to scout the interior were frustrated by the building's small, almost completely opaque windows. Relatively few of the houses and structures in Numa-Ku had glass windows, but the temple was one of them. Dark and dirty glass filled every arch, making it impossible to see inside.

"Come on, Ami-chan. Time for plan B," Tsuzumi said, drawing a kunai, and moving to stand.

"Wait, something's happening," Ami hissed, her eyes fixed on the temple door.

Tsuzumi crouched, and there was a movement at the door to the temple. It opened, and a bald man in dark red robes emerged. He closed the door behind him, then walked off quickly, eastwards down the board-walk which encircled the town. The pair waited until he was out of sight behind the clustering houses and warehouses that filled the outskirts of the floating city.

"Ah, that's even better eh Ami-chan," Tsuzumi said, smiling.

Something in Ami's chest relaxed at the return of her sensei's smile, however forced, and she followed him down to the temple door. The door opened without sound.

Compared to its exterior, the inside of the central hall was almost austere. There were no rugs to decorate the floor, which was formed of the polished stone on which the building sat. The edge of the room was dotted with simple clay urns of varying sizes, plain and unadorned, and towards the back of the room was the only hint that the room was used as a temple - a simple wooden altar, though where there should have been a picture or idol of a deity, there was only a hanging black curtain, with a single symbol written in white paint: 'Nothing'. The central chamber had two exits, each would lead to a corridor of one of the wings they'd seen from above.

"Do you sense anyone present?" Tsuzumi whispered, looking around the room, then turned to Ami.

Ami shrugged exaggeratedly, and gave her sensei an expression that suggested he was stupid.

"Ah-ha, right, just a little genin. You take the left wing, I'll look in the right. Look for any evidence, or any sign of Nara-san." Tsuzumi began moving off towards the right hand door, and Ami slipped to the left.

She didn't know what Tsuzumi had meant by 'evidence', but the first room along the corridor branching away to the left was obviously someone's bedroom. There was a low bed covered in dark red sheets, a bookcase of scrolls, a square chest at the foot of the bed, and a large desk covered in paper and calligraphy equipment. Ami checked the chest first, and she felt like her eyes must be bulging when she found several neat stacks of money inside.

"Sorry dummy-san. The spoils of war," Ami said lightly as she picked up the bundles and stuffed the notes into her pouch. The pair of scrolls which were the chest's only other contents followed the ryo into her soon bulging equipment pouch almost as an afterthought; their titles seemed boring, but they were clearly prized, and their loss could only inconvenience the man who'd tried to kill her.

The second room contained what Ami realised was a clue. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all covered in enormously intricate calligraphy. Circles within circles, within spirals, surrounded by characters she'd never seen before. She understood in theory that sealing existed, and was considered an art, but she'd never seen an example of it that left her in awe before. At the centre of it all was a huge clay urn, as tall as she was, and similarly painted with obscure markings. The only word she did recognize in the mess of ink covering the urn was the word 'womb', written large, and in a space of its own on the urn's side.

She was distracted from her reverie by the sound of metal striking against metal from behind her in the main room. She ran through, and saw her sensei shuffling backwards, parrying strikes from the naginata held by the mercenary from the inn the previous day.

"Spear-san!"

"Ah-ha, would you like to help Ami? It's good training," Tsuzumi huffed out in a rush.

Tsuzumi raised his kunai to block a strike from the mercenary, which turned out to be a feint, the naginata changing direction in mid swing and slicing forward in a thrust, catching along the Tsuzumi's bicep. The chunin spun out of the way and tossed a pair of shuriken in response, which the mercenary simply endured, the padded material of his shirt reducing the impacts to shallow cuts.

Ami drew and tossed a kunai at the man, which he easily parried with the haft of the naginata, even as he launched into another flurry of attacks at her sensei. Ami noticed the bulk of the man's style seemed to focus on strikes from the side, at the shoulder and feet, debilitating strikes which her sensei was easily parrying, but would occasionally be reversed into unexpected thrusts at the last moment, it was in that way that the mercenary had managed to score a couple of shallow cuts on her sensei's arm and leg, while keeping him too far away, and too pressured from the chunin to mount a counter-attack.

Ami turned half away and put her hands to her equipment pouch for several seconds, hearing her sensei give another grunt as he took another shallow cut from the blade. The next kunai she threw was also batted side, but the mercenary missed the pair of senbon which followed, and they thudded into his chest. The man grunted, but the needles didn't seem to have penetrated as deeply as they should have, caught on the man's coat.

The mercenary, seemingly worried by Ami's intervention, began to press the attack, aiming for a fatal strike. Tsuzumi tried to use the new aggression as an opening to get inside his guard, but was pushed backwards in the fury of the assault, and was forced to draw a second kunai to better parry the unexpected thrusts.

Ami ran behind the mercenary, drawing a third kunai, and running at his back with the blade poised to stab. The mercenary didn't even look behind him, simply spinning the haft of the naginata back to strike her head. The blow landed in the existing bruise on the side of her head, and Ami staggered backwards, momentarily blinded by pain, half falling to her knees.

The mercenary was pressing her sensei hard, and with the reach advantage granted by his weapon, they seemed about even. As a shinobi, Tsuzumi had any number of additional weapons and techniques at his disposal, but he was being kept too far away to use taijutsu for anything but blocking, and he wasn't being given a moment to string together any hand seals for ninjutsu.

As Ami contemplated what she could do to help, she noticed the cool ground beneath her hand, the polished stone of the temple floor, and a memory of the journey surfaced.

She strung together hand seals, slowly, deliberately, before slapping her hands onto the ground, shouting "Doton: Open Pit technique!"

The ground beneath the mercenary was yanked down with a cracking sound, and he dropped. He fell only a little under a foot, and Ami's sensei had been caught in the edge of the area, but it was enough to momentarily unbalance the mercenary and deny him the mobility he needed to use his weapon effectively. Tsuzumi immediately kicked the naginata out of his hands, and sent a second, almost contemptuous kick to the mercenary's head. The ronin slumped unconscious over the edge of the pit.

Ami took a second to catch her breath, and raised a hand above her head. "Victory!"

"Nice one, Ami," Tsuzumi said as he regained his breath. "He shouldn't have underestimated you, eh?"

"Yeah," Ami said, walking up to the unconscious man and slapping his face several times with the sole of her foot. "You should have killed me when you had the chance."

"Ah-ha, don't gloat, Ami-chan," Tsuzumi said, shooing away her foot and pulling a bundle of wire to tie the unconscious mercenary's hands and feet.

"Oh, Sensei, I found a clue."

Tsuzumi looked up from the binding. "Show me."

Ami led her sensei to the room with the large urn, and he had his own moment of awe as he examined the room in detail. "I bet Nara-san would love to get a look at this."

"Euuuh-" a noise came from the urn.

Ami and Tsuzumi leapt backwards from the noise, Tsuzumi with his kunai at the ready.

"I-is Nara-san in the pot, sensei?" Ami asked, shakily.

"Wait here." Tsuzumi inched forward, lifted the urn lid, and peeked inside. He reeled away with a hand to his mouth, letting the lid clatter down. He swayed for a moment, then vomited onto the carefully inscribed floor.

"Nara-san?" Ami said, rushing forward to look.

"N-no! Not Nara-san. Some townspeople." Tsuzumi said, spitting, and stopping her with a raised hand. Ami saw him reach into his equipment pouch, drawing an explosive tag. "I think... I think he's making a doki in there. Go wait in the main room, Ami."

Ami did as her sensei instructed, and a few seconds later he came sprinting down the corridor after her. He swept up the mercenary over one shoulder, and darted to the door. "Come on," he said quickly, gesturing with his head for her to follow as he almost bounced on the spot.

There was a muted explosion from the urn room. Ami moved to follow, paused, and after a moment's thought kicked the naginata up into her hands before following Tsuzumi from the temple.

o o o

"It's up here, sensei!"

Ami led Tsuzumi up along a series bridges and tree trunks towards the derelict house where she'd fought Koka the previous night.

"This looks fine," Tsuzumi said, dropping the mercenary into a corner of what remained of the building.

The explosive tag Ami had set off had apparently destroyed most of the wooden platform in front of the house, and had taken some of its front wall away, but its supports were still surprisingly sound, and most of the damage to the building's roof looked like old wear - pieces which were missing before Ami ever used it as a battleground.

"We can interrogate him here, and watch for Nara-san coming back to the inn at the same time."

"Okay! I call torture," Ami said, slipping her hand into her equipment pouch.

"There won't be torture," Tsuzumi barked sharply, eyeing the naginata Ami was almost hugging. "And leave that weapon behind, it looks ridiculous on you."

Ami pouted at her sensei.

"I'm going to check if Nara-san came back while we were away. Wait here." Tsuzumi jumped from the ruins of the wooden platform, leaping from house to tree down towards the inn, where he slipped into the bedroom window.

Ami passed the time by swinging the naginata around, making thrusts against shadow opponents in the empty ruins of the house.

"That's wrong," a quiet, defeated voice uttered from the corner of the room.

Ami spun, holding the blade of the weapon out in front of her.

"Also wrong," the mercenary said, then broke into a coughing fit, straining against his bonds. "The most basic stance, is standing naturally, with the naginata held upright in one hand."

"Like this?" Ami asked, relaxing her posture and holding the weapon loosely.

"That's the 'shizentae'. It allows you to react quickly to your enemies movements." He coughed again. "What's your name?"

"Ami." She moved, taking the stance she'd seen the mercenary using with the fight against her sensei. "What about this?"

"That's the chudan stance. It's the best balance of attack and defense. Why did you attack me?"

"You started it!" Ami said.

"No, your friend attacked me first, in my own home. I don't know who you are, except that you're Fire ninja."

"Well, it must have been because you're working for Dummy-san," Ami said uncertainly.

"I follow Koka-sama. He's teaching me how to achieve peace. He's a great man."

"He makes monsters!" Ami objected. "And he tried to kill me, and he killed Captain-san."

The mercenary seemed to think for a moment. "Koka-sama says we are all monsters. We bray and we fight in the dirt, but he has a special way, a way to rise above the suffering of the world."

"Sensei says this looks ridiculous," Ami said, stamping the shaft of the naginata on the wooden floor.

"It does," the man said, laughing through a cough. "It's much too big for your frame,"

"You're not so much bigger than me, spear-san."

"True. It's a good weapon for a small person."

"What's the best stance for fighting a ninja?" Ami asked.

The mercenary gave Ami a long look. "There is no good stance for fighting a ninja. If you try and fight a ninja with a naginata, you will lose. Besides, you are a ninja, you have your own ways."

Tsuzumi appeared at the edge of the ruined wall, smiling. He seemed so unruffled that Ami thought he might have been there for a while.

"Ah, no sign of Nara-san at the inn, and the others are still half asleep," Tsuzumi said, crouching to look at the mercenary. "You don't know why that is do you? Most of our team can barely stay awake."

The man tried to shrug, and winced. "No, it's something about this place. It's a peaceful city. People wake up to feed themselves, and bathe sometimes, but they're content. The sun shines, the children play. I think this place is blessed."

"It seems more like a curse," Tsuzumi said. "Those people are sleeping their lives away."

"And what is life," the man stared glassily at his feet. "A dreamless sleep is better than this nightmare we call life."

"Ah, who are you then?" Tsuzumi asked.

"Just a warrior. My name is Juzo," he replied, the sullen glare falling to the floor.

"And how did you come to work for Kotaro-san?" Tsuzumi asked, remembering the real name of the monk.

"Kotaro isn't his name any more, we call him Koka. But- I was a samurai once, in the service of the daimyo of Fire."

"Oh? I didn't know the daimyo kept a samurai force," Tsuzumi asked pleasantly.

"He doesn't. I was a personal retainer for the daimyo. Until about ten years ago. There was an attempted coup by some of the daimyo's ninja protectors. I was there that night. I tried to fight, but their strength, it was monstrous. I lost everything in the fire. I wandered for a long time, I thought I'd lost even myself, until I found Koka."

"So you serve because of loyalty," Tsuzumi asked.

The man shook his head sadly, a dribble of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth. "Loyalty is just another word to me now. All words have as much meaning as mist. I serve because he leads me on the path to peace."

"And where is he now?" Tsuzumi asked, getting to the heart of the interrogation.

The man tried to shrug. "He left in a hurry. There was a disturbance, at the farm. The lotus farm."

"Nara-san," Ami whispered, recalling the farm Suzaku had been so interested in.

"Ah. Looks like I have to go and visit," Tsuzumi said, moving towards the door. "Don't forget to look after Juzo, Ami-chan. Don't untie him!"

"I know, I know," Ami said, rolling her eyes.

Tsuzumi cast a final, reluctant gaze over the room, then flickered away.

o o o

 _Author Note_

 _About reviews: I've had some kind and some thoughtful reviews, so thanks to anyone whose left those. I take every criticism on board, and I'm trying to improve as I go, but I'm writing a few chapters ahead, so don't worry if there's a lag between giving some good advice and seeing me take account of it. Thanks for reading._


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